



i'Ri:si;.\Ti-;ii i;y 



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JOHN PETER ALTGELD 



BORN DKCEMBKR .JO, 1847 
DIED MARCH 12. 1902 



Dedicatory Exercises 



AT THE UNVEILING OF 



BRONZE TABIiETS 



IN MEMORY OF 



John P. Altgeld 



AT THE 

G^ARRICK THEATRE. CHICAGO 



Sunday, September 4, 19 lO 



c^<3 



UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE 

JOHN P. ALTGELD MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION 

^* OF CHICAGO 






ALTGELD MONUMENT 

GRACELAND CEMETERY 

CHICAGO. 




«;' 


PUBUC| 


1 1 , 




^. 






1 


BEST YEARS.'AHI^^H 
OFFERINGS TO' HEFMHI 
NECESSARX 1- SHOUlCTfH 
ITSELF A SMALi: SACliif ftl • 


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JOHN PETER ALTGELD 

CITIZEN, Volunteer Soldier. 
Lawyer, Judge, Orator, 

GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS. 

Born December 30,i847 Died Marchj2J902. 

i 

these Tablets 

Containing Selections from his 

Public Utterances 

ARE dedicated BY 

The John R Altgeld Memorial Association. 

»^ Si « Qi Z* iS iS '^ Hf i^ C^ 

"I HAVE GIVEN ILP Jt^OiS FOUR OF MY 
BEST YEARS. AND HAVF H^SIT ALL MY 

OFFERINGS TO HER AIT ! JAD IT BEEN 

NECESSARY I SHOULD Hi^v i:. wur^SEDERED LIFE 
ITSELF A SMALL SACRIFICE IN HER INTEREST." 



TABLET I. 



"If THE DEFENDANTS HAD A FAIR TRIAl^ 

THERE OUGHT^^'TOBE NONINTERFERENCE; FOR 
NO PUNISHMENT UNDER OUR LAWS COULD 

THEN BE TOO^SEYERE. :BUTr^THtY.DID:fN0T4:; 
HAVE A FAIR TRIALrtHE EVIDENCE UTTErIIn 
>^FAILS T0:;:|:0NNE6T,:::,THE 7^NICN0WNmWH^^^^^^ 
THE BOMilWITH THE DE:FENDANTSyAND|l^»^2 
CON VINCEb^' tfi^ j;t';;IS*; M^; Dy|^|T|:| 

PAR D O N '' O F *C H I C AC O ,'AN ARC H I ^ 



i>^ iSt i!S iSs & >1< 



"Under the law as ; 
BE, A President, tHRl 

APPOINTEES, can APPCiFW^i 
HAVE THE MILITARY SENf III 
AND BASE HIS APPMe#llON 
RE PRESENTATIONS AS H&fEl 

ASSUMPTION IS NEW, ANi I i 
IT IS NOT THE LAW OF Th| 
JURISTS TELL US THIS igR^ I 
OF LAW, AND NOT A Covf 
CAPRICE ;,0F AN: j,|lp|yi|)i|Arf 



IIME: IT TO 
f|F HIS 

*"r:^to 






> !',,. K^ '• r .\ 



mf-^'T-i 




TABLET II. 



The doctrine that might makes right 
has covered the earth with misery. 
While it crushes the weak, it also 
destroys the strong. every deception, 
every cruelty, every wrong, reaches 
back sooner or later and crushes its 
AUTHOR. Justice is moral health, 

BRINGING HAPPiNESS:^WRONC IS MORAL 



DISEASE, BRINCIN' 






<»^ 








D 






TABLET III. 




TABLET IV. 



GARRiCK Theatre, September 4, 1910, 2:30 P. M. 



DANIEL L. CRUICE, Chairman 



Music by the Sinai Congregation Choir 

MR. ARTHUR DUNHAM, ORGANIST AND DIRECTOR 



SOPRANOS ALTOS 

Mrs. Mabel Sharp Herdien Miss Rose L. Gannon 

Mrs. Arthur Dunham Miss Elsie Schnadig 

TENORS BASSOS 

Mr. W. B. Ross Mr. Albert Borroff 
Mr. Glenn Hobbs Mr. Guy Shaw 



order of exercises 



Prayer by the Rev. Thomas E. Cox 



"HYMN TO THE HOMELAND" Sullivan 

BY THE CHOIR 

ADDRESS . . . . . .' . Mr. W. E. Clark 

"NO SHADOWS YONDER" Gaul 

SOLO BY MR. ROSS 

ADDRESS . . . ... . Mr. Lee Meriwether 

UNVEILING OF THE BRONZE TABLETS 

MISS ORIS GOTTLIEB 

"AMERICA" Smith 

BY THE CHOIR AND AUDIENCE 

ORATION Hon. George Fred. Williams 

"GOD BE WITH YOU TILL WE MEET AGAIN" . Rankin 

BY THE CHOIR 



The oil painting of Governor Altgeld exhibited on the platform is loaned by the 
Chicago Historical Society for this occasion. 



AMERICA 



My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing ; 
Land where my fathers died, 
Land of the pilgrims' pride, 
From every mountain side 

Let freedom ring. 

My native country — thee. 
Land of the noble, free — 

Thy name I love ; 
I love thy rocks and rills. 
Thy woods and templed hills ; 
My heart with rapture thrills. 

Like that above. 

Let music swell the breeze, 
And ring from all the trees 

Sweet freedom's song ; 
Let mortal tongues awake, 
Let all that breathe partake, 
Let rocks their silence break— 

The sound prolong. 

Our Fathers' God, — to Thee, 
Author of liberty, 

To Thee we sing; 
Long may our land be bright 
With freedom's holy light ; 
Protect us by Thy might. 

Great God, our King. 



Biography of John P. Altgeld 



JOHN PETER ALTGELD was born in Germany in 1847. He was 
brought to this country as an infant by his emigrant parents, 
who settled near Mansfield, Ohio. His father and mother were 
poor and perhaps of narrow views in regard to the training of their 
children. He wished for a liberal education. Conscious of intel- 
lectual power, even as a young boy, he wanted to make the best of 
himself God had made possible. His schooling was very scanty. 
Like Lincoln, as a youth, he read few books, but good ones. Like 
him, too, he read them in the midst of discouragement and hard- 
ships. In 1863, at the age of sixteen, he became a private soldier 
in the Union army. Returning to his father's farm at the close of 
the war, he remained at work for his parents until he came to be 
twenty-one. Then, with only a few dollars borrowed from a friend, 
he started west to seek his fortune. He worked as a common 
laborer for a time, I remember that he told, me once, in building a 
railroad in Arkansas. I suppose that it could not have been for 
long, for the latter part of 1869 found him a school teacher in a 
country school in Savannah, Missouri, and a law student in the 
office of a local lawyer at such times as he could snatch from his 
necessary work for a livelihood. In 1872 he was admitted, to the 
bar, and immediately his ability gaining recognition, was made city 
attorney of Savannah, In 1874 he was elected state's attorney of 
the county of which Savannah was the county seat. But the duties 
which met him in that office were not to his taste. He served a 
year and then resigned and came to Chicago with the scant savings 
of his three years' practice to hew out his fortune and make his 
name among the citizens of Illinois. 

(From address of Mr. Justice Edward O. Brown before the Chicago Histor- 
ical Society, December 5, 1905.) 



Words of John P. Altgeld 



Government is the constant meeting of new conditions. 

While the past may admonish, it is the future that inspires. 

•If 
Let us save our institutions : government by injunction must be 
crushed out. 

In all ages only those people have had a measure of justice 
who were in a position to compel it. 

Teach the employer that he is not above the law and the 
employe that he is not beneath its notice. 

Only those nations grow great which correct abuses, make 
reforms and listen to the voice of the struggling masses. 

It is the criminal rich and their hangers-on who are the real 
anarchists of our time. They rely on fraud and brute force. 

All great reforms, all forward movements of the human race, 
were born of, were nurtured, rocked and reared by minority parties. 

(^ 

He (Henry George) had shown what one earnest, patriotic man 
can do toward restoring the people to their inheritance and then 
gone home. 

The really influential men in America are, I repeat, the suc- 
cessful private individuals — positive men, earnest, conscientious, 
thorough-going men. 

t^ 

If our institutions are to undergo a great change, it is vital that 
the men of America and not the money should direct the change. 
Money may be a blessing as a servant, but it is a curse as a master. 



16 WOBDS OF JOHN P. ALTGELD 

Why do we honor the memory of Jackson ? Amid temptation and 
threats of destruction he fixed his eye on the star of Justice, shook 
his fist in the face of power and delivered the American people. 

It is worthy of note that in all times men who profit by wrong 
or seek the smile of injustice, assume an air of superiority. But their 
names are never stamped on any roll of honor and no tears moisten 
their graves. 

t>?c 

In our country to-day both government and people are subser- 
vient to the corporations, and one argument in favor of Postal 
Savings Banks is that it would help to free both government and 
people from this domination. 

In all ages and in all countries the men who are in the wrong 
depreipated discussion. In no countries have dishonest policies 
sought the sun, and no organizations of highwaymen have as yet 
petitioned for ielectric light. 

The great men and women of the past who led the human race 
onward were not reared, as a rule, in the lap of luxury. They came, 
as a rule, from the bottom, and not from the top ; they were familiar 
with hardships and were acquainted with sorrow. 

No government was ever overthrown by the poor and we have 
nothing to fear from that source. It is the greedy and the power- 
ful that pull down the pillars of state. Greed, corruption and 
Pharisaism are to-day sapping the foundations of government. 

We owe our country more than talk ; we cannot discharge our 
duty by simply celebrating the glorious deeds of the past. The men 
who only do this proclaim to the world their imbecility and the 
humiliating fact that they are not capable of directing the great 
institutions which the fathers founded. 

t>?c 

There is to-day no agency in American politics that is so fiercely 
hungry, so thoroughly unscrupulous, so absolutely destitute of every 
principle of honor as the' great newspapers of this country, and God 
has not made the man who can do anything great or good for this 
city or this Republic while guided by their influence. 

There is a peculiar pleasure in dedicating these monuments, 
because they^commemorate the deeds of the volunteer soldiers, the 
citizen soldiers who came from the walks of every -day life, and wllo 



WOBDS OF JOHN P. ALTGELD 17 

represented the common sense, the rugged character, the love of 
country and the earnestness of the great American people. 

Now, gentlemen, why do we celebrate the birth of Andrew 
Jackson ? It is because he stood erect in the sight of Omnipotence 
and all the children of man, and defied the forces of plutocracy. 
It is because he stood for the great toiling masses of humanity, 
because he stood for those doctrines that are vital to free government. 

0% 

Let me say to young men, this age is weary of the polite and 
weak camp followers, weary of servility, weary of cringed necks 
and knees bent to corruption. This age is calling for soldiers, call- 
ing for strong character, calling for men of high purpose, calling for 
men who have convictions of their own and who have the courage to 
act on them. 

These two principles, i. e., Federal Union and D^al Self- Gov- 
ernment, have for a century been regarded as the foundation upon 
which the glory of our whole governmental fabric rests. One is just 
as sacred, just as inviolable, just as important as the other. Without 
Federal Union there must follow anarchy, and without Local Self- 
Government there must follow despotism. 

(^ 

Government by injunction is incompatible with republican 
institutions, and if it is to be sustained then there is an end 
of trial by jury in our country, and instead of being governed by 
law we will be subject to government by judges, and if government 
by injunction is to be sustained by federal judges, then we will 
soon have it on the part of State judges and the very foundations 
of free institutions will disappear. 

Mr. Lincoln was nominated for president, and men who have 
since helped to canonize him then denounced him as a demagogue 
and a vulgar clown, with whom no respectable man could associate ; 
he was regarded as an agitator who was endangering our institu- 
tions. There were at that time twenty-three preachers of the gospel 
in Springfield, Illinois, which was his^;. -feo^e, and history has 
recorded th'e fact that only three supported Mr. Lincoln. 

0% 

We glory in our common- school system; we glory in the fact 
that over a century ago Thomas Jefferson, while a member of the 
Legislature of Virginia, secured the enactment of laws, and the first 
law in that State, creating a common-school system^ a system of 



18 WOEBS OF JOHN F. ALTGELD 

free libraries, and laying the foundation of a university. He recog- 
nized the fact, as we do, that universal education of the masses is 
an absolute necessity to the permanence of democratic institutions. 

c% 
Every age has jDroduced millions of strong and industrious 
men who knew no higher God than the dollar ; who coined their 
lives in sordid gold, who gave no thought to blessing the world or 
lifting up humanity; men who owned ships and palaces and the 
riches of the earth, who gilded meanness with splendor and then 
sunk into oblivion. Posterity erected no statue to their memory, and 
there was not a pen in the universe that would even preserve a 
letter of their names. 

There cannot be in a republic any institution exempt from crit- 
icism, and when any institute is permitted to assume that attitude 
it will destroy republican government. The judicial branch of the 
government * * * needs this criticism more than does either of 
the other two branches because * * * the people can make their 
will felt in the legislative and executive offices; but the federal 
judges * * * cannot be reached except by the moral sentiment and 
sense of justice created in the public mind by free criticism. 

Government by injunction operates this way : When a judge 
wants to do something not authorized by law, he simply makes a 
law to suit himself. That is, he sits down in his chamber and 
issues a kind of ukase which he calls an injunction against the 
people of an entire community or of a w^hole State, forbidding what- 
ever he sees fit to forbid, and which the law does not forbid, and 
commanding whatever he sees fit to command, and which the law 
does not command — for when the law forbids or commands a thing 
no injunction is necessary. 

Great as is Chicago — great in its railroads, great in its fac- 
tories, its warehouses, its office temples, great in its energy and 
enterprise of its people — its glory will fade unless it builds on more 
than material foundations. 

The generations to come will care nothing for our warehouses, 
our buildings or our railroads ; but they will ask what has Chicago 
done for humanity; where has it made man wiser, nobler or 
stronger; what new thought, or princijile, or truth has it given to 
the world ? 

Government was created by power and has always been con- 
trolled by power. Do not imagine that it is sufficient if you have 



WOBDS OF JOHN P. ALTGELD 19 

justice and equity on your side, for the earth is covered with the 
graves of justice and equity that failed to receive recognition, 
because there was no influence or force to compel it, and it will be so 
until the millennium. Whenever you demonstrate that you are an 
active concentrated power, moving along lawful lines, then you will 
be felt in government. Until then you will not. This is an age of 
law as well as of force, and no force succeeds that does not move 
along legal lines. 

What, then, draws the world to this man? It is the broad sym- 
pathy for suffering mortals which he possessed. Henry George's 
soul went out toward all that were in distress. His ear caught the 
cry of sorrow that has saddened the ages from the time that the 
children of Israel sat down by the river of Babylon and wept. 

In writing "Progress and Poverty" he dipped his pen into the 
tears of the human race, and with a celestial clearness wrote down 
what he conceived to be eternal truths. When he died, there was 
nowhere a soul that cried out, "There is one iron hand less to grind 
us, one wolf less to tear our flesh," but everywhere a feeling that a 
friend of the race had gone. 



(Sa 



Young men, life is before you. Two voices are calling you — 
one coming from the swamps of selfishness and force, where success 
means death; and the other from the hilltops of justice and prog- 
ress, where even failure brings glory. Two lights are seen in your 
horizon— one the fast fading marsh light of power, and the other 
the slowly rising sun of human brotherhood. Two ways lie open for 
you — one leading to an ever lower and lower plain, where are heard 
the cries of despair and the curses of the poor, where manhood 
shrivels and possession rots down the possessor; and the other 
leading off to the highlands of the morning, where are heard the 
glad shouts of humanity and where honest effort is rewarded with 
immortality. 

But, says some one, is there any use in our making an effort ? 
Are not all the bankers of this country, all of the trusts and great 
corporations of this country, all the powerful forces of this country, 
is not the fashion of this country, are not the drawing-rooms and 
the clubs of this country now controlled by concentrated and cor- 
rupt wealth ? Are they not growing stronger every year, and do 
they not vilify and attempt to crush everybody that does not submit? 
Can anything be accomplished in the way of curbing this great force 
and protecting the American people ? 

My friends, let me cite you a parallel : George William Curtis and 
other writers of his day have described the slave power back in the 



20 WOMDS OF JOHN P. ALTGELD 

50*s. They tell us that slavery sat in the White House and made 
laws in the capitol; that courts of justice were its ministers; that 
senators and legislators were its lackeys ; that it controlled the pro- 
fessor in his lecture-room, the editor in his sanctum, the preacher in 
his i^ulpit ; that it swaggered in the drawing-room ; that it ruled at 
the clubs; that it dominated with iron hand all the affairs of society; 
that Q\QYj year enlarged its power, every move increased its 
dominion ; that the men and the women who dared to even question 
the divinity of that institution were ostracized, were persecuted, 
were vilified — aye, were hanged. 

But the great clock in Ihe Chamber of the Omnipotent never 
stands still. It ticked away the years as it had once ticked away the 
centuries. Finally it struck the hour and the world heard the tread 
of a million armed men, and slavery vanished from America forever. 
Note the parallel. To-day the syndicate rules at the White House 
and makes laws at the capitol; courts of justice are its ministers; 
senators and legislators are its lackeys. It controls the preacher in 
his jDulpit, the professor in his lecture-room, the editor in his sanc- 
tum; it swaggers in the drawing-room; it rules at the clubs; it 
dominates with a rod of iron the affairs of society. Every year 
enlarges its power ; and the men and women who protest against the 
crimes that are being committed by organized greed in this country 
— who talk of protecting the American people — are ostracized, are 
vilified, are hounded and imprisoned. It seems madness to even 
question the divinity of the American Syndicate. But, my friends, 
that great clock is still ticking — still ticking. Soon it will again 
strike the hour and the world will see not 1,000,000 but 10,000,000 
free men rise up, armed not with muskets, but with free-men's ballots, 
and the sway of the syndicate will vanish from America forever. 



JOHN P. AliTG^EIiD 



A CHARACTER STUDY 



JOHN P. ALTGELD 

A CHARACTER STUDY 



By Francis F. Browne 

(Editor of The Dial, Chicago) 



[Note. — Immediately after the Presidential Campaign of 1896, the editor of 
'■'■The National Review'''' of London requested Mr. Browne to prepare 
for its pages an article setting forth the issues of the cam,paign on the 
Dem.ocratic side, with some sketches oj the principal leaders and 
incidents involved. The article was prepared., and appeared in '■'■The 
National Review''"' for December, i8g6. Mr. Altgeld's prominence in 
that campaign {in which he was at the same tim,e a candidate for 
re-election as Governor) made him a leading figure in the article; and 
although written so soon after the heat of the conflict, the portions 
devoted to him, showed such clear understanding of the m-an and such 
dispassionate analysis of the chief events in his career that it has been 
decided to reproduce these portions here., as affording, after the lapse 
of fourteen years, perhaps the best appreciation that has yet been given 
of Altgeld''s character, purposes, and acts.'\ 

From the very opening of the Democratic National Conven- 
tion of 1896, its leader and dominating spirit was John P. Altgeld, 
Governor of Illinois. He was the brain and will of the Conven- 
tion, as Bryan was — very literally — its voice. Bryan's nomina- 
tion was in the nature of an accident; Altgeld's leadership was 
inevitable from his position and his personal qualities — from his 
abilities, his courage, and his practical political sagacity. Even 
before the Convention assembled, he had done more than any 
other man to forecast its character, to create the situation and 
shape the issues which were there developed. In a speech of 
great power, delivered on one of the opening days of the Con- 
vention, before the adoption of a platform or balloting for a 
candidate for the Presidency, he had defined the issue, and 
sounded the key-note of the coming struggle. This speech, 
which was extemporaneous, occupied about thirty minutes ; it 
was calm, forcible, earnest, convincing ; its reception showed 
that the speaker had formulated the thoughts and wishes of the 



24 JOHN P. ALTGELD 

Convention, and spoken the word for the hour. The demonstra- 
tion that followed was the most magnificent evoked by any of 
the speakers save only Mr. Bryan, whose now famous "Crown 
of Thorns" speech came a day later, and a day later still his 
nomination for the Presidency. No contrast in persons and 
characters could be more marked than that between these two 
men, the foremost figures of the Convention and the campaign : 
the young orator of the West, a strong-limbed, strong-lunged 
athlete, stalwart, confident, and bold, with the rude force and 
enthusiasm of youth — with something, too, of its crudeness and 
immaturity, — but buoyant, aseertive, "magnetic," with a power of 
homely and forceful eloquence that takes popular audiences by 
storm, a "man of the people," a "commoner," a radical and an 
oi3timist, with unbounded faith in Providence, in the Republic, 
and in himself, a man of destiny or of accident according to 
one's philosophy; — the Governor, a pale, intellectual, thoughtful 
man, with a sad and serious face; a temperament reflective and 
philosophical, yet alert and ready; calm, intrepid, and inflexible, 
able to stand alone against a thousand, yet quick to see the 
essential or potential elements in a situation and masterful in 
shaping them to desired ends; a man impatient at obstacles and 
objections, yet one to whom ultimate purposes and principles 
are more than present gains, and who knows how to bide his 
time ; of unyielding courage and endurance, yet no voluntary 
martyr; able equally to bear attacks in silence or to give back 
blow for blow; a friend of humanity, and a hater of injustice to 
others as to himself; a keen critic of social institutions, who 
thinks one should not only desire improvement but should work 
practically to attain it; a mature student of politics and society, , 
who sees clearly the costs and difficulties of reform; a man of 
independent fortune, whose place is yet by choice among the 
party of the poor; a public speaker lacking or disdaining the 
arts of oratory, yet swaying vast audiences by his earnestness 
and the force of his logical appeal; a semi-invalid who is yet 
capable of the most vigorous and sustained exertions, and whose 
physical powers are able to support the activities of his restless 
brain only by a will-force which, "like seasoned timber, never 
gives"; a nature somewhat passionate and quick, yet subdued 



A CHABACTER STUDY 25 

to habitual self-control; tried and tempered by adversity, yet 
kindly and sympathetic to all who deserve his courtesy; — such, 
roughly sketched, are some of the traits and characteristics of 
that remarkable man known as Governor Altgeld of Illinois, one 
of the most interesting and heroic figures in American public 
life. I watched him at the Convention, where he sat quietly in. 
his place among the delegates, the centre and often the direct- 
ing spirit of the exciting scenes, yet outwardly the most 
unmoved man upon the floor. I have for several years watched 
his career and studied his character; and though the present 
sketch may lack something of the s.^iarpness of detail and clear- 
ness of portraiture that might come from a personal acquaint- 
ance, it may perhaps, for that very reason, have a better quality 
of disinterestedness. 

It is now about ten years since I first heard the name of 
John P. Altgeld, I was connected with a publishing house, and 
came one day upon a manuscript bearing Mr. Altgeld's name as 
author. It was, as I recall, an essay upon Penal Reform, or 
something of that nature. I think the essay showed but a 
moderate degree of literary skill, and did not pretend to very 
much; but it showed force, and thought, and observation, and 
insight, and these qualities gave it a value which secured its 
publication. This naturally gave me an interest in the author; 
and though I had no meeting with him, I learned that he was a 
successful Chicago lawyer with a predilection for social and 
political studies. Shortly after this he was elected judge of the 
Superior Court of Cook County, and served upon the bench with 
credit, as I understood from members of the bar. During this 
period he wrote and spoke much on topics of general public 
interest, and also began taking a practical part in politics. In 
1892 he was nominated by the Democratic Party as Governor of 
Illinois, and was elected by a substantial majority. His official 
and public acts since that time are matters of record and of 
history. I have understood that in the fifteen or twenty years 
preceding his election as judge he had accumulated a fortune of 
half a million or a million dollars. He had come to Chicago a 
poor boy, I think from some town or village in Ohio (he was 
born in Germany), and after a hard struggle with poverty he 



26 JOHN P. ALTGELD 

■was admitted to the bar, where he worked his way to a lucrative 
law practice. The most of his fortune, however, was made by 
lucky investments in real estate. His operations, it was said, 
were marked by a far-seeing sagacity, an unsparing analysis 
of all the factors of a situation, and a boldness that seemed 
bordering on recklessness in carrying his plans into execution. 
He bought outlying tracts of land and sub-divided them for the 
market; he mortgaged his land and erected business blocks and 
rows of houses which he sold at a profit; he appeared to take 
heavy chances, but the results usually sustained his judgment. 
These personal details would scarcely call for mention here, 
were they not significant in illustrating the practical side of 
Governor Altgeld's character, and in showing something of the 
activities and vicissitudes of his career. He is yet, I believe, 
but about fifty years of age. In appearance he is about medium 
height, of well-developed figure, and hair and beard untouched 
with grey. His manners are dignified, and his face is at once 
strong and refined, — in fact, he is one whose presence would 
attract attention in any company of distinguished men. Some- 
thing in his expression, and in his careless manner of allowing 
his hair to fall over his forehead, marks him peculiarly as the 
caricaturist's prey, — very much "as Mr. Howells, the novelist, 
whose gentle manners and kindly disposition endear him to all 
who know him, has yet something in the shape of his face and 
the matting of his hair which causes his pictures to represent 
him often as an uncomely ruffian. 

Simultaneous with Mr. Bryan's candidacy for the Presidency 
was Mr. Altgeld's candidacy for a second four years' term as 
Governor of Illinois. From what has already been said it will 
be seen that he was his party's ablest and most influential leader 
and hence its logical candidate for the Presidency. This w^as, 
however, rendered impossible by the clause of the Federal Con- 
stitution limiting this high office to citizens of native birth; and 
Mr. Bryan, a more fortuitous candidate, was nominated instead. 
The positions, of the two men, their simultaneous candidacy 
and mutual support, have therefore made them pre-eminent in 
the public mind. Against them have been directed the heaviest 
blows of the campaign; they have been from the beginning in 



A CHABACTEB STUDY 27 

the very centre and vortex of the storm. Probably never in our 
political history have men battled against more overwhelming 
odds. All the personal and party hatreds toward Governor 
Altgeld were turned against Mr. Bryan also. His nomination 
was received first as a joke, and then as an outrage. The con- 
servative elements of society appeared to be amazed and shocked 
by the candidates and their platform. All the weight of these 
conservative elements, of an almost united metropolitan press, of 
a nearly united pulpit, of the matchless political organization 
and unlimited resources of the great Republican Party, was 
directed against the new movement and its leaders; and upon 
these two champions were rained the fiercest and deadliest 
blows. As the campaign advanced and excitement ran higher 
and higher, there was more appeal to passion, more calling of 
hard names and charging of sinister motives. ■ Hard names are 
so much easier to give than arguments, and in times of great 
public excitement are often so much more effective. They are 
the deadly weapons of debate, which should be prohibited as 
much as the revolver or the bowie-knife. It is hard to see why 
public sentiment and law, which forbid physical assault, should 
make so little of the deadlier assaults upon the higher person- 
ality of character and reputation. It must be recorded that the 
offenses of this nature were far more prevalent on the Republican 
side than on the Democratic. The latter used some ugly words, 
but they were more generally directed against systems or groups 
than against individuals ; while on the Republican side the 
bitterest assaults were made against individuals. The tone of the 
Northern press toward the South at the outbreak of the Rebel- 
lion, amidst the fierce hatreds and angry passions of civil war, 
was scarcely more violent and intolerant than the tone of the 
leading opposition newspapers toward the Democratic leaders and 
their cause. It must also be regretfully recorded that the most 
violent and uncharitable of these phrases came not from the 
rude West but from the more cultured East. The most noted 
clergyman of New York City denounced from his pulpit "the 
crowned hero and worshipped deity of the anarchists of the 
Northwest," Governor Altgeld, who had the "magnificent effront- 
ery" to go to New York to deliver an address in answer to a 



28 JOHN P. ALTGELD 

severe attack that had been made upon him there by a promineut 
Republican orator. While thus resenting Mr. Altgeld's "invasion 
of the East," New York sent to oppose him in the West Mr. 
Carl Schurz, the most logical and formidable debater on the 
Republican side, who found in him alone a foeman worthy of 
his steel; and it sent also the two great popular orators, Depew 
and Ingersoll. A distinguished General of the Civil War, who com- 
manded a corps of the Union Army in the fight at Gettysburg, 
was also sent to Illinois, to travel back and forth among its 
towns and villages, and inform the people that their Governor 
—the highest official of the third great State in the Union, 
chosen to his position by a majority of its five million inhabi- 
tants—was "a wolf who needed skinning." Another New York 
orator, who is regarded as one of the most conspicuous examples 
of "the scholar in politics" in America, before an audience of 
13,000 people in Chicago denounced Governor Altgeld as "one 
who would connive at wholesale murder," who "condones and 
encourages the most infamous of murders," and both Altgeld and 
Bryan as men who "would substitute for the government of 
Washington and Lincoln a red welter of lawlessness and dis- 
honesty as fantastic and vicious as the Paris Commune." The 
cartoonists of the campaign were not to be outdone by the 
writer or the orator. The Democratic leaders Avere portrayed as 
devils with horns and tails, as bats with outspread wings, as 
incendiaries with flaming torch, as assassins with knife and 
dagger. One cartoon represented Governor Altgeld as a pirate 
on a vessel's deck, under a black flag, a demon's scom^I on his 
face, and an arsenal of murderous weapons at his waist; another 
showed him at the head of a gang of desperadoes, under a skuU- 
and-cross-bones flag, in one hand a bombshell marked "Anarchy,"' 
in the other a flaming torch; still another, almost too horrible 
for description, was a ghastly picture of Governor Altgeld arm-in- 
arm with Guiteau (the abhorred murderer of President Garfield), 
each with a demon's face, and bearing in his hands a pistol and 
a dagger. The worst of these cartoons were not in newspapers, 
but in the most respectable and influential illustrated journals of 
the land. It is not pleasant to dwell on these revolting phases 
of the campaign, which I have illustrated merely with incidents 



A GHABAGTEB STUDY 29 

that came under my own eyes; there may have been worse ones 
on both sides, but I have not happened to see them. They are 
unparalleled, so far as I know, in American politics, except by the 
pre-election portraitures of Lincoln — when he was made to 
appear in certain sections of the country as an ape, a blacka- 
moor, and a devil, — and by the vials of wrath poured out by 
press and pulpit upon our early Abolitionists, when the most 
crushing rejoinder that could be made to arguments for human 
freedom was thought to be, "Would you want your daughter to 
marry a nigger?" — corresponding to the logical poser of the 
present day, "Are you in favour of anarchy and murder?" 

The introduction of Anarchy as a party cry and almost as a 
party issue is such a new and startling thing in politics that its 
significance cannot be overlooked. Whence has it come, this 
strange weapon in party warfare, and how has it been made so 
potent in this campaign ? 

The two most noteworthy events in Governor Altgeld's 
official career, and those with which his name is conspicuously 
connected, are the "pardon of the Anarchists" and the acts in 
connection with the labour riots in Chicago in 1894. The former 
made him probably the most hated man in America; the latter 
raised an issue that stirred the whole country, that was carried 
into the national platform of a great party, and has been made 
a prominent feature of a great national campaign, Mr. Altgeld 
had been Governor for something over a year, and, as far as I 
recall, had won good opinions from the people by his faithful 
administration of their affairs. He had shown zeal and energy, 
and high executive ability; progressive and scientific methods 
had been introduced into the management of public institutions; 
the educational interests of the State had received careful atten- 
tion; measures for humane and philanthropic work — as the 
factory laws for the protection of children — had found in him an 
earnest and efficient supporter. Suddenly, in June, 1893, came 
his now famous "pardon message." In Illinois, the Governor 
has power by law to commute to imprisonment the sentences of 
men condemned to death for capital crimes, and to pardon those 
who are undergoing sentences of imprisonment. In the exercise 
of this power, on the date named, he issued pardons to three 



30 JOHN P. ALTGELD 

men who were serving sentences for alleged complicity in the 
notorious "Haymarket riots" in Chicago in 1886. Such pardons 
are not uncommon in Illinois, and when issued are usually the 
result of a petition which brings the case to the Governor's 
attention, with a transcript of the records showing the facts, and 
a statement of the grounds on which executive clemency is 
sought; and the pardon, when granted, is often accompanied 
with a message from the Governor, briefly outlining the facts, 
and giving reasons for the pardon, for the information of the 
people. It was this statement of reasons in the Anarchists' case, 
rather than the pardon itself, that caused the vials of public 
wrath to be outpoured upon his head; this was the beginning of 
the animosity that has pursued him with unrelenting bitterness, 
that has defeated his re-election as Governor, and has been 
made a controlling element in a Presidential campaign. Had 
Governor Altgeld accompanied the pardon with a perfunctory 
official message, stating in a general way that the pardon should 
be issued, comparatively little would have been said about it. 
Had he been a timid and prudential man, or had he not had the 
training and temperament of a lawyer and a judge, this is prob- 
ably what he would have done. But he is so far from being a 
timid man, that he chose not only to issue the pardon, but, in 
giving his reasons, to controvert some of the most essential 
matters of law and fact that were involved in the trial of the 
case. This remarkable and exhaustive review — a document of 
sixty printed pages — is before me as I write. The Governor states 
that "The several thousand merchants, bankers, judges, lawyers, 
and other prominent citizens of Chicago, who have by petition, 
by letter, and in other ways, urged executive clemency, mostly 
base their appeal on the ground that, assuming the prisoners to 
be guilty, they have been punished enough." On the grounds 
thus urged, the Governor refuses to interfere in the case, saying: 
' ' If the defendants had a fair trial, and nothing has developed 
since to show that they are not guilty of the crime charged in 
the indictment, then there ought to be no executive interference, 
for no punishment under our laws could then be too severe. 
Government must defend itself; life and property must be pro- 
tected, and law and order must be maintained; murder must be 



* 



A CHABACTEB STUDY 31 

punished, and if the defendants are guilty of murder, either 
committed by their own hands or by someone else acting on 
their advice, then if they have had a fair trial there should be 
in this case no executive interference. The soil of America is 
not adapted to the growth of Anarchy." 

The Governor then proceeds to say that another portion of 
the petitioners had based their appeal on different grounds — on 
alleged errors in the trial of the case; and these errors he pro- 
ceeds very carefully to examine. It is, of course, impossible to 
go into them here; the most interesting one relates to a prin- 
ciple of law laid down by the trial judge, which he himself 
declared to be without a precedent, as no example of the case 

could be found in the law books. It should be mentioned here to 

the surprise, possibly, of many readers — that the bomb-thrower 
in this cause celebre was never discovered by the authorities ; 
that some of the convicted and executed men were not even 
present at the scene of the bomb-throwing; that the prose- 
cution and conviction of the seven defendants, to quote the lan- 
guage of the trial judge, "has not gone upon the ground that 
they did actually have any personal participation in the par- 
ticular act which caused the death," but if the jury believed the 
unknown thrower of the bomb might have been influenced or 
incited to the commission of the crime by anything written or 
spoken by the defendants, then the jury might hold them guilty 
of the crime. The Governor, waiving consideration of this legal 
doctrine, which he says may well be declared to be "without a 
precedent," for in all the centuries in which government has 
been maintained among men and crime has been punished no 
judge in a civilized country has ever laid' down such a rule before, 
proceeds to say that "taking the law as above laid down, it was 
necessary under it to prove, and that beyond a reasonable doubt, 
that the person committing the violent deed had at least heard 
or read the advice given; for until he either heard or read it he 
did not receive it, and if he did not receive it he did not commit 
the violent act in pursuance of that advice; and it is here that 
the case for the State fails." There were still other defects in 
the trial, the Governor alleged and specified, sufficient in them- 
selves to call for executive interference; and accordingly the 



32 JOHJS r. ALTGELD 

pardons were issued, as already stated. The unjust conviction 
had been partly due, the message further declared, to an excited 
public opinion, which had been inflamed by the newspapers. 
The affronted newspapers and affronted public opinion bitterly 
resented the imputation. The charge was indeed a grave one: 
the same verdict that sent J^hese men to prison sent five others 
to the scaffold, and if the former were unjustly and unlawfully 
deprived of liberty, the latter were unjustly and unlawfully de- 
prived of life. There was an outburst of popular indignation, 
and from that time Governor Altgeld became a bete noire to all 
the newspapers in Chicago, the city where the trial and execu- 
tion had been held. They began accounting for his course by 
suggesting every imaginable unworthy motive— reaching by de- 
grees the singular discovery that he was himself an anarchist 
and had pardoned these men because he sympathized with their 
plans and purposes: a sort of logic by which the pardon of a 
man sentenced for murder would prove the pardoner himself a 
murderer, or the pardon of a man sentenced for wife-beating 
would prove the pardoner himself a wife-beater. It was this 
sinister accusation, thus originating, and expanded by every con- 
ceivable device of partisan ingenuity and malevolence, that has 
done such effective service this year in the State and National 
campaign; it is the fairness and justness of this accusation, and 
the legitimacy of such weapons in party warfare, rather than 
any question about the right or wrong of the pardon act, that is 
the issue here sought to be presented. 

The cry of "Anarchy," the origin and significance of which 
can be understood only in connection with the general facts set 
forth in the foregoing summary — facts that are matters of record, 
and can be investigated in extevso by anyone having the time and 
disposition — this sinister and dangerous cry was not the only one 
of like character that was raised against the Democratic leaders 
and their cause. It has been charged and constantly reiterated 
by the most respectable journals and orators of the opposition, not 
only that Governor Altgeld was a sympathizer with criminals and 
opposed to the execution of the laws, but that he was the friend 
of rioters and the enemy of social order. It was his influence, 
it has been declared, that procured the adoption of the "worst 



A CHABACTEB STUDY 33 

plank" in the Democratic platform — the plank described as favor- 
ing "free riots" and the "overthrow of the judiciary." The 
plank thus denounced is directly and logically the outgrowth of 
another noteworthy event in Governor Altgeld's official career. 
The prominence given to this event, and its influence as a factor 
in the campaign, make it necessary that the facts be briefly re- 
cited here. 

In the summer of 1894 an unusually serious strike occurred in 
Chicago. It began among the employees of the Pullman Car Com- 
pany's shops, and soon spread to the employees of the railroads, 
until there was a refusal to haul any trains containing Pullman 
cars, and practically a "tie-up" of all the roads leading out of 
Chicago. The strikers asserted that the strike was directed solely 
against the hauling of Pullman cars; that all trains not contain- 
ing these cars would be manned and run as usual; and they 
particularly asked that all mail-cars should be detached and for- 
warded. This the railroads, which united and acted for the 
occasion under an executive committee, refused; and the strike 
became more general and stubborn, involving presently the usual 
incidents of riot and disorder. Under the laws of Illinois, when- 
ever a riot or an unlawful disturbance becomes too serious for 
the local authorities to manage, the State militia is called out by 
the Governor, upon application from the Mayor or Sheriff of the 
city or county where the trouble has occurred. In the present 
case, several days passed during which no such call was made. 
The evidence shows that repeated telegrams were received by 
the Mayor from the Governor, asking to be advised if help was 
needed; that troops were held in readiness day and night to move 
at a moment's notice; that the Mayor's replies to the Governor's 
enquiries were to the effect that the trouble was not too serious 
for the local authorities, who were in control of the situation and 
did not need assistance. It should be noted that the Governor 
was at the capital of the State, nearly two hundred miles from 
the scene of the disturbance, and could have no knowledge of the 
situation except as gained from others; and that he naturally 
relied upon the local authorities to keep him informed, as he had 
in fact requested. The Mayor of Chicago at that time was a 
young, energetic, and ambitious man, and had at his disposal a 



34 JOHN P. ALTGELD 

large and highly efficient police force; and he doubtless had a 
feeling of pride in demonstrating his ability to control affairs in 
his own municipality. He sent the Governor reassuring tele- 
grams, and delayed asking for assistance; and he seems at last 
to have made a reluctant requisition for troops, only upon the 
urgent suggestion of the Governor himself. He perhaps overes- 
timated his own strength and underestimated the seriousness of 
the disturbance ; it is known that the current newspaper accounts 
were greatly exaggerated,— and it is to be noted that the Chief 
of Police of the city, in testifying in the matter before a Com- 
mittee appointed by Congress to investigate the strike, a few 
months later, distinctly stated that at no time had he regarded 
the riots as beyond his control. But v/hatever the cause of the 
delay in calling on the Governor for aid, there could be no ques- 
tion of the promptness and energy of the response when the requi- 
sition came ; the troops that had been held day and night in 
readiness were put instantly in motion, and in a few hours sev- 
eral strong regiments were at the scene of disorder, and did 
effective service. 

But meanwhile a singular and unlooked-for situation had arisen. 
The President of the United States had been telegraphed to by 
some local Federal official, acting, it is understood, on the sug- 
gestion or at the instance of the committee of railroad managers, 
or their counsel; and in response to this appeal the President 
had ordered certain detachments of United States regulars to 
Chicago — and these regulars were actually there and on duty 
before the arrival of the State militia. There was no conflict 
of authority between these two forces, those of the State and 
those of the United States; they worked together, and with the 
local authorities, in suppressing riot and enforcing law and order 
— a task that was soon accomplished. But Governor Altgeld, re- 
garding the call for Federal troops as a reflection on the State 
authorities, and possibly with some natural exasperation at the 
false position in which he had been placed, at once forwarded 
to the President a statement of the case, declaring that no 
emergency had arisen requiring the presence of Federal troops, 
and no call for them had been made in either of the ways j^re- 
scribed by the Federal Constitution ; that the regularly constituted 



A CHABAGTEB STUDY 35 

authorities and forces of -Illinois were abundantly able to preserve 
peace and order in their State; that the use of Federal troops 
was unnecessary, and a violation of law; and that for these rea- 
sons he protested against their presence and asked for their im- 
mediate withdrawal. To this the President made a courteous 
and dignified response, but the troops were not withdrawn; the 
Governor, after repeating his protest, accepted the situation, and 
the incident was closed. But it has given rise to an endless and 
acrimonious discussion, carried at last, as we have seen, as a 
political issue, into a Presidential campaign. Into the merits of 
that discussion it is not necessary here to go. It is a case that 
may be, and has been, argued by able constitutional lawyers on 
both sides. Governor Altgeld holds one view, and when the issue 
suddenly arose in his official life, he raised a question of Con- 
stitutional law and made his formal protest under it, as a lawyer 
would file his objection in a cause. He belongs, it must be 
explained, to a political school traditionally jealous of Federal 
interference in State affairs, a school that has included a bril- 
liant line of Democratic statesmen, from Jefferson's day to ours. 
It is interesting to recall that Mr. Palmer, a present Democratic 
Senator of the United States, and the recent "Gold Democrat" 
candidate for the Presidency, has also been a Governor of Illi- 
nois, and had a similar tilt with the Federal Government on the 
question of its interference in State affairs. There were some 
serious riots in Chicago in 1871, on which occasion Governor 
Palmer made a protest, far more spirited than Governor Altgeld's, 
against the use of Federal troops, even demanding the criminal 
indictment of their commander, General Sheridan, for the killing 
of a citizen by a soldier under his command. On the side of 
President Cleveland it must be pointed out that the sending of 
troops in 1894 was declared to be not for the purposes of police 
duty, as was the case in 1871, but for the protection and main- 
tenance of the mail-service, and the enforcement of the laws of 
the United States regarding inter- state commerce. These inter- 
state commerce laws were not in force in 1871; but the mails 
doubtless suffered obstruction by reason of the riots, and this 
might have been made a reason for the use of Federal troops 
then, as on the later occasion. There is a difference between 



36 JOHN P. ALTQELD 

the positions of the two Governors, to be taken into account for 
whatever it is worth in the discussion of the somewhat difficult 
legal and constitutional questions involved, the pursuit of which, 
however, is no part of the present enquiry. The essential thing 
here is the strangeness of the logic and the blindness of the 
animosity that would make this point of difference a ground for 
the sweeping condemnation of Governor Altgeld, and for denounc- 
ing him as a "defender of rioters" and a "friend of lawless- 
ness and disorder." By means of these denunciations, and under 
the exigencies of a furious political campaign, a popular concep- 
tion has actually been created that he was one who not only 
refused to suppress rioting himself, but was angry with the 
President for assuming the duty which he would not perform; so 
easy is it to mis-state the positions and misconceive the acts and 
motives of those to whom we are ill-disposed. 

In studying the results and significance of any great political 
contest, it is of course of the first importance to understand 
clearly what were the issues presented and what were the con- 
trolling influences in the struggle ; for in no other way can we 
arrive at anything like correct conclusions. It was foreseen that 
the result in Illinois, the third in size of the forty-five States 
of the Union, might in itself, and by its influence on neigh- 
bouring doubtful States, determine the national contest ; hence 
the tactical policy of taking advantage of the unpopularity of 
Governor Altgeld, and, by the concentrated and tremendous 
efforts to break him down, to bear down with him the Presi- 
dential candidate. That the cry of "Anarchy" which had already 
been raised against Governor Altgeld could defeat him in his 
own State must be thought sufficiently strange when we consider 
how groundless and unjust the charge ; that it could actually 
have been carried into national politics, and have been made to 
serve as a chief factor in the defeat of a candidate for the 
Presidency, will doubtless seem incredible. But it must be so 
recorded by the dispassionate observer. Every possible power 
was brought to bear to place upon the Democratic candidate and 
his party the odium attaching in the public mind to Governor 
Altgeld and his alleged ' ' criminal sympathies and anarchistic 
tendencies." He, it was declared, was "the power behind the 



A CHABACTEB STUDY 37 

Convention, and Bryan was his tool." He was "an enemy of the 
Constitution"; he stood for "all the essential doctrines of Jeff 
Davis and Herr Most"; and his "final aim and purpose" were 
declared to be nothing less than the "overthrow of law and 
order, the rights of property, and conservative government in 
the United States." These attacks came in every conceivable 
form, and from all sides at once — like the converging fire upon 
the charging column at Balaclava ; the wonder is not at the 
result, but that any sort of fight was possible against such des- 
perate odds. He was treated as an outlaw, who was to be 
denied the rights of ordinary warfare. Every attempt to correct 
the most exorbitant mis-statements of facts, to defend himself 
from the most infamous accusations, was greeted with a new 
storm of epithets and objurations from his enemies. "They 
out-talked him, hissed him, tore him." The right to a hearing was 
practically denied him by the attitude of the majority of his coun- 
trymen. The charge of being an anarchist he has, of course, never 
stooped to answer, based as it is on the fine logic — with the 
insuperability of which the reader of history is by no means 
unfamiliar — that to question another's guilt of an odious crime 
is to prove the questioner himself a criminal; as Byron said, he 
knew he should be damned for hoping no one else would ever 
be. He has, however, been always ready to answer to his con- 
stituents for his official acts; and for those that have been most 
severely criticized he has given the fullest and most exhaustive 
statement of facts and reasons, — statements that probably have 
never been examined, very likely never even heard of, by one 
person in a thousand of those who have accepted the accusations 
of his enemies and joined in the popular clamour against him. 
The current misconception of him and of his acts would be grotesque 
were it less pernicious. Trained in the knowledge and practice 
of the law, with a strict regard for the observa,nce of legal forms 
and requirements, he has yet been successfully represented as 
the friend of lawlessness. An individualist in standpoint and 
opinion — one who, his mind once fixed, would hold his course 
indifferent to the current of the hour — he is yet depicted as a 
demagogue, notwithstanding that his most important acts have 
been done in the very teeth of public sentiment. With that 



38 JOHN P. ALTOELD 

readiness to impute low aims and motives which is a curse of 
party politics, it was said that he '* truckled to the lower classes," 
that his object was to "catch the labour vote"; yet when oc- 
casion arose, as it did in connection with the labour-contracts of 
the State Penitentiary, he antagonized the labour unions as un- 
hesitatingly as he had antagonized the newspapers and the 
so-called "better elements" of society. It is easy to see that 
such a man must have a rocky path; and he has had it, and 
has held his course in it. The man who can do this, unmoved 
and undeterred by the disapproval and denunciation of his fel- 
lows, must be either very strong or very dull; and the bitterest 
enemies of Governor Altgeld have never called him dull. But it 
can be little wonder, under such conditions as have been shown, 
that he was beaten in this campaign, and by a rather weak 
opponent; his success under the circumstances would have been 
but little short of miraculous. It is because of the unprecedented 
nature of the great struggle, the world-wide interest in its leading 
issues, the contradictory accounts of men and measures which 
might well puzzle observers at a distance, that I have sought to 
illustrate some of its more vital and significant phases as identified 
with the career and character of one of the foremost actors in this 
now historic drama — John P. Altgeld of Illinois. 



Note. — Governor Altgeld's full official statement in the matter of the 
"pardon of the anarcfhists, " with an exhaustive review of the case, is accessible 
to the public in a pamphlet of sixty pages ; and the facts regarding the Chicago 
riots of 1894 are to be found in full in the official Report of the Adjutant-General 
of Illinois for 1893-4, in the Report to Congress of the committee of that body 
appointed to investigate the strike, and in many other official documents and 
records. 



Addresses and Oration 

delivi:red at the 
dedicatory exercises 



Vice-President Jacob C. LeBosky Introducing Mr. Daniel L. Cruice, 

Chairman 



Ladies and Gentlemen : 

In the absence of Mr. Gottlieb, President of the Altgeld 
Memorial Association, it is my privilege and pleasure to welcome 
you today, and to introduce as Chairman of this meeting one of 
John P. Altgeld's devoted friends, Mr. Daniel L. Cruice. 



Address by Mr. Daniel L. Cruice, Chairman 



Mr. Vice-President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

When we consigned to earth all that was mortal of John P, 
Altgeld, a few of his friends organized the John P. Altgeld 
Memorial, Association, for the purpose of meeting from time 
to time, and renewing our devotion to his memory, and re-affirm- 
ing our loyalty" to the political and economic creeds sponsored 
by him. » 

To those of us who had the privilege of being near him 
during the storm raised by the dishonest — and, in many 
instances, corrupt — criticism of his conduct, this Association 
affords the opportunity of hurling into the teeth of his calum- 
niators the falsehoods uttered by them. 

We do not seek to perpetuate his name or his fame, as we 
realize that in his lifetime Governor Altgeld so tirnily established 
his place in history that more than impotent would be our 
efforts to write his name higher than he has written it himself. 

We gather from time to time to attest to the world our 
knowledge of the patriotism, the honesty, the humanity of 
Altgeld. 

His patriotism was evidenced not alone by his shouldering a 
musket in time of war, but by his ceaseless warfare in times of 
peace upon those who, by corruption, were undermining the 
institutions of our country. 

His honesty was evidenced by the fact that he went into 
the office of Governor of this state a rich man, that he served 
through a period when his signature to any of a number of 
venal bills passed by legislatures would have meant untold 
wealth to him, yet he died a poor man with a mortgage on the 
home that sheltered him. 



42 ADDRESS BY MB. DANIEL L. CRUICE 

His humanit}' was evidenced by his untiring interest in the 
victims of commercial greed, — every message addressed to the 
legislature contained appeals for the workingmen, the working- 
women, the victims of child labor ; every public utterance was 
a protest against injustice and a plea for justice. Not alone did 
his humanity encompass individuals, but when the lives of the 
Transvaal Republics were in the balance, — when the red-coated 
emissaries of a giant empire sought to shoot and hang into sub- 
mission the sturdy burgers who defended the Republics, — it was 
Altgeld, and Altgeld only, who raised his voice in protest, and 
who, as he finished an eloquent plea for justice between nations, 
lapsed into unconsciousness and died. 

We have invited you here to assist us in unveiling metal 
tablets containing selections from his public utterances; and the 
duty of selecting utterances for perpetuation in metal was not 
without embarrassment, for of his utterances it may be said that 
all of them deserved such perpetuation. In discussing selections, 
there was some difference of opinion as to what should appear 
upon the limited space afforded by the tablets. Some one said: 
"Turn to the passages in his utterances that immutably establish 
his sublime courage, that show his contempt for the cant and 
hypocrisy' of his period, that throws him into relief as a moral 
giant amongst pigmies," and instantly was agreement as to the 
utterances on the tablets. 

In holding our various services, we have attempted to have 
them conform to the ideals of the Governor in his life. He was 
a Christian in the larger sense of the word, he was a patriot in 
all that the word implies, and a humanitarian in every atom of 
his being. It is fit, therefore, that we invoke prayer, hymn, and 
speech on this occasion. 

Our knowledge of the high esteem merited by Father Cox, 
and the esteem so freely accorded Father Cox by Governor 
Altgeld in his life, impelled us to invite Father Cox to be with 
us today; and I now respectfully request Father Cox to lead us 
in prayer. 



Prayer by the Rev. Thomas E. Cox 



Almighty Father, Who in Thy Holy Word hast said: "Let 
us now praise men of renown, and our fathers in their genera- 
tion." "Let the people shew forth their wisdom, and the church 
declare their praise." The memory of him shall not depart 
away, and his name shall be in request from generation to 
generation. Mercifully deign to look with favor upon all who 
are gathered here in the spirit of love and good will. Bless the 
work of this hour. Bring to our minds the ideals, the purposes, 
and the hopes, that inspire and uplift human life. Make us 
humble in our own eyes, as was the great man whose memory 
we cherish today, and give us courage to be strong for the 
right, as he was, and faithful till death. Amen. 



Chairman Cruice Introducing Mr. W. E. Clark 



Mr. Vice-President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

Looking back into the years when Altgeld was with us, one 
of the things that impresses us is the influence Altgeld exerted 
upon the young men of his day. Meeting them as they crossed 
the threshold of manhood suffrage, it was his greatest pleasure 
to point them the way to decent self-respecting citizenship. 

He used no arts of oratory, no pharisaical preachments, no 
sounding rounded platitudes, — nothing but the simple language of 
an earnest man. 

He told not of matters beyond the grave, nor of official or 
other emoluments waiting to reward virtue ; but he pointed out 
the duty one man owed to another; that misery and suffering 
invited human sympathy and aid; that corruption in public life 
meant national decay. 

He took them by the hand and led them through the gar- 
dens of citizenship; he pointed out the flowers to be nourished 
and cherished, the weeds to be rooted out, and the political 
poison ivy to be avoided. 

He told them, and told them truly, that when life's toil is 
collected, all one has left is one's self-respect ; without' it, life is 
vain, all else in the world is dross; with it, life's chalice is filled. 

Those who followed Altgeld followed with the knowledge 
that approval of conscience would be the only reward. Yet no 
serried ranks of soldiery, no panoplied brigades went forth more 
bravely to battle than did the young men enrolled by Governor 
Altgeld; and though routed — horse, foot and dragoons, — though 
overwhelmed by force of numbers, yet today they stand the 
defeated but unconquered champions of Altgeld, his memory and 
the political, ethical, and moral standards raised by him. 

Among the young men to whom Altgeld was the political 
north star were many with the ability to tell of their faith and 
the reasons therefor. 

We asked one of them to address us to-day, and I am sure 
that it will afford you the same pleasure to hear, that it did us 
to select, Mr. W. E. Clark. 



Address by Mr. W. E. Clark 



3Ir. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

John P. Altgeld was born in Germany. He grew to man- 
hood in Ohio, spending nearly all the rest and the better part of 
his life in Illinois. And he spent it in such a manner as to 
justify us in calling him a "citizen of the world," His life and 
labors were such as to make it impossible for the future historian 
to write the history of the struggle for human liberty without 
including the name of Governor Altgeld of Illinois. 

I was a boy in college— just reaching up to manhood— when 
the name of Governor Altgeld was first brought prominently to 
my attention. A class-mate was denouncing him for pardoning 
the Anarchists. On asking why he pardoned them, my friend 
replied that it was because Altgeld, too, was an anarchist. 

Owing to pressure of school work, the incident lay dormant 
in my mind until one morning during the summer vacation of 
1894, when I read Governor Altgeld's first telegram to President 
Cleveland, protesting against what many termed an "unwarranted 
act" on the part of the President. As the days followed, subse- 
quent telegrams between Governor Altgeld and President Cleve- 
land proved to the satisfaction of my mind that John P. Altgeld 
was not an anarchist. But only a casual glance at the situation 
revealed the fact that tyranny, if not anarchy, was aiming at the 
life of our Republic. I was convinced that my friend was right 
in the diagnosis of the disease, but that he had made a mistake 
as to its location. A further study of the Altgeld-Cleveland con- 
troversy, and the usurpation of power on the part of federal 
judges, and Governor Altgeld's fortitude through it all in con- 
tending against great odds for the enforcement of law, demon- 
strated beyond any possible doubt that the century which 
produced Lincoln was still fertile, and that it had given us 
another Man. 



46 ADDRESS BY MR. W. E. CLARK 

The environment or conditions which place men in different 
and sometimes bitterly hostile political parties, divisions, or na- 
tions, are soon forgotten. "While they are new, however, they 
often serve as a curtain to the mind, preventing us from seeing 
the good qualities in an opponent. But, fortunately for the peace 
of mankind, changing conditions are always shifting men from 
one political party, division, or country to another. This fact 
proves the oneness of humanity, and that enmities between indi- 
viduals and peoples are due almost invariably to the state of 
the mind and not to the iniquity of the heart. The rank and 
file who make up the numerical strength and constitute the 
actual support of the contending political organizations in this 
or in any country, — in other words, those who do the work of the 
world — are a unit in adhering to the underlying principles which 
govern human society, they are all working for the comfort and 
happiness of home and those they love. And the great world 
character is the man who looks beyond geographical boundary 
lines, wishing that all peoples may have the same liberties, the 
same or equal opportunities, that he and his people possess. 

We are met today to pay tribute to the memory of such a 
man. You do not expect from me an analysis of Governor Alt- 
geld's career. That j^leasant duty necessarily belongs to older 
men, to those who were with him in the fight he waged for a 
better world in the here and now. I never had the pleasure of 
coming in close personal contact with the man Altgeld ; but the 
fact that one who never saw him is yet eager to share in paying 
tribute to his memory proves that the name of Altgeld belongs 
to humanity. His personal friends will soon follow him into the 
great silence: and were only they to sing his praises, the melody 
of that splendid life would ere long cease to be an inspiration. 
Like every man who is wise enough to believe in, and brave 
enough to advocate, absolute and impartial justice among men, 
Governor Altgeld was not without enemies. His bravery in tak- 
ing a decided stand on the important political questions of the 
day very naturally, although unfortunately, made him the target 
for a great deal of vindictive criticism from those who held 
opposite views ; and if there had been nothing to the man but a 
bright intellect and an eloquent tongue, prejudice would have 



ADDRESS BY MR. W. E. CLARK 47 

quickly buried those qualities in the cemetery of abuse. But 
back of every position that he took, upholding every argument 
that he made, shining through every word that fell from his 
lips or issued from his pen, and inspiring every act of his ener- 
getic life, was a quenchless increasing love for his fellow-men. 

In support of this estimate of Governor Altgeld, I want to 
refer briefly to his treatment of that unconstitutional innovation 
on the part of federal judges, called government by injunction ; 
and also to his interest in the youth of America. 

In the judgment of many of the great minds of his day. 
Governor Altgeld's arguments against government by injunction 
were unanswerable. They were so clear that his opponents on 
that question were left with only two alternatives, — either to 
generously admit that he had proved his case, or resort to 
abuse. And the pity of it is that too many of them adopted the 
latter course. 

Governor Altgeld demonstrated by cool and clear reasoning 
that government by injunction is a usurpation of power, and 
therefore a crime ; and straight way those who had usurped that 
power, and those who were profiting off the spoils of that crime, 
called him an "anarchist." He argued for the enforcement of 
law ; and immediately the representatives of a few of the great 
cor]3orations that were conducted as though they were above the 
law, especially those that were being enriched at the terrible 
expense of the unprotected poor, called him "lawless." He 
showed that it was unconstitutional, and therefore a high crime, 
for a judge to deprive a man of his constitutional right to a 
trial by jury, rob him of his liberty, imprison him without a 
trial according to the forms of law ; and they said he was an 
"enemy of peace and order." Governor Altgeld proved conclu- 
sively that republican institutions and government by injunction, 
being of opposite character, cannot both exist in the same coun- 
try; and they said he was trying to "destroy the Republic." 

But all the vituperation which the real enemies of our Re- 
public were capable of hurling at him could not budge John P. 
Altgeld from the course that, to him seemed right. Nor could 
the actually offered bribe of a million dollars make him waver in 
his career, or even hesitate to be a man. 



48 ADDBESS BY MB. W. E. CLARK 

At length, a few began to see the object of all the hostile 
criticism; they began to see through all the falsehoods and in- 
sinuations, through all the bitter tirades that political opponents, 
aided by an unfriendly press, could fling at this noble man. Like 
Lincoln, he had battled on until the name of Altgeld became a 
part of the history of the struggle for human liberty. And now 
it cannot be erased from that record. 

When the name of every time-server who vilified and abused 
him has faded from the memory of man, the name of Altgeld 
will continue to inspire the young men of America to respond to 
the cry of humanity. 

I have said it cannot be erased from the historic struggle 
for human liberty. Neither can the forces of reaction tear out 
the page on which that name is inscribed, because that page 
is the human heart, — because the name of Altgeld is indelibly 
stamped in the hearts of those who toil. 

Governor Altgeld will be remembered for his interest in the 
youth of our country. In his address to the graduates of the 
University of Illinois, or when laying the corner-stone of a nor- 
mal school, — in fact in every address to the young, he never failed 
to incorporate the thought that human society rests upon the 
shoulders of those who toil; and that only they are deserving of 
respect who gladly accept and cheerfully perform their share of 
the world's work. He saw danger lurking in the pathway of the 
dilettantism that is slowly creeping across the country; and be- 
lieving it to be the result of an idle purposeless life, he empha- 
cised the necessity, the importance, and the dignity of labor. 
With all the j^ower of his vigorous soul, he abhorred parasitism — 
social, economic, or political. 

He believed that everyone should have leisure from bread- 
winning or money -getting in order to have an opportunity for 
improving the mind. Having observed that those who read are 
those who rule, he advocated an eight-hour day so as to give the 
workers a chance to read. Believing that the best form of 
society is that in which all of its members are equal before the 
law, he had the courage to follow that principle to its logical 
end. In other words, having arrived at that conclusion, he did 
not lose his power to reason, or his sense of justice. In office 



ADDBESS BY MB. W. E. CLABK 49 

and out of office, consistency with Altgeld was a jewel that re- 
tained the same lustre and the same degree of magnitude. He 
saw that, in a republic, those who are compelled to obey the law 
must have an equal voice and vote, both in the making and in 
the enforcing of that law. 

And he said all of this to the young — to those who in a few 
years will be the State. He wanted the youth of our country to 
face the world and its responsibilities with a clear and receptive 
mind, thoroughly impressed with the fact that "labor is the only 
door to achievement; there is no other way." 

In closing, I want to read four brief quotations from Gover- 
nor Altgeld. The first is from an interview on the wearing of 
gowns by judges: 

"No robe ever enlarged a man's brain, ripened his wisdom, 
cleared his judgment, strengthened his purpose, or fortified his 
honesty. If he is a little man without a robe, he is contemptible 
in a robe. If a man is large without a robe, he is simply ludi- 
crous in one. . . . Our age is superior to the middle ages 
only in so far as it has progressed beyond sham and formalism, 
lofty pomp and hollow and dull dignity, and asks now to show 
things as they are." 

The next two are from addresses to students: 

"The men who gather at banquets dressed in fine linen and 
soft raiment may imagine that they are the State, but it is not 
so. Many of them are simply parasites, eating bread that others 
toil for; all could be wiped out and the nation would go right 
on; they would scarcely be missed. It is the intelligent men 
who create and produce the things that make a State, who are 
its bulwarks. Remove them suddenly from existence and the 
State is lost." 

"Young men, life is before you. Two voices are calling you 
— one coming from the swamps of selfishness and force, where 
success means death; and the other from the hilltops of justice 
and progress, where even failure brings glory. Two lights are 
seen in your horizon — one the fast-fading marsh light of power, 
and the other the slowly-rising sun of human brotherhood. Two 
ways lie open for you — one leading to an ever lower and lower 
plain, where are heard the cries of despair and the curses of the 



50 ADDRESS BY MR. W. E. CLARK 

poor, where manhood shrivels and possession rots down the 
possessor; and the other leading off to the highlands of the 
morning, where are heard the glad shouts of humanity and 
where honest effort is rewarded with immortality." 

The same thought is continued in an address at Springfield 
in 1898: 

"Never before did the world call so loudly and so earnestly 
for men who will make honor the pole star of conduct. ... I 
appeal to you to prepare yourselves for the great work before 
you, for upon you it must devolve. Most of us wiio have been 
laboring in the vineyard, doing what little we could, now find 
that we have passed the zenith. We find that our shadows are 
growing longer, we find that our endurance and our activities 
are growing shorter. We can still work at clearing away the 
rubbish, we can still chop down the underbrush, we can still 
help to make the road over which the army shall pass, we can 
still stand guard at strategic points ; but advancing armies, con- 
quering armies, must be led by young men, men who have their 
careers before them. Rise to the occasion. Meet the demands 
of the time. Respond to the cry of humanity, and you write 
your names against the skies in letters of glory, and win the 
blessings of all the generations to come." 

"Old-fashioned oratory," says one. Yes, but without regard 
to political affiliation, I, for one, believe that if that advice had 
been , followed between the years 1898 and 1910, if "honor had 
been the pole star of conduct" among our public officials, the great 
State of Illinois would have been spared the humiliation and the 
disgrace of the recent jury bribing and vote buying scandals, 
whose terrific odors reach up to the stars. If the light that guides 
our lawmakers had been the "slowly-rising sun of human brother- 
hood," there would not be a hall in this state large enough to 
contain the audiences that would gather to pay tribute to the 
memory of Altgeld — the brave soldier, the devoted husband, the 
conscientious lawyer, the upright judge, the honest governor, 
and the life-long advocate of liberty on equal terms for all the 
peoples of all the earth. 



Chairman Cruice Introducing Mr. Lee Meriwether 



Mr. Vice-President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

In no field of human activities was Governor Altgeld more 
interested than that concerning municipal administration and 
policies. 

So interested was he indeed that, though his long services 
and broken health imperatively called for rest, he resisted the 
call and entered a municipal campaign as an Independent when 
he felt that the affairs of the city of his adoption required it. 

He knew that monopoly in private hands was ever a weapon 
of abuse ; he knew that monopoly obtained as an incident of 
tariff legislation was a menace and led to other and greater 
monopolies ; he knew that franchises for the operation of public 
utilities 'were grants of monopoly; and he knew that there never 
was a franchise grant made that was not the result of a corrupt 
bargain. 

Further he knew it to be axiomatic that those who were 
venal and corri^t enough to pay bribes for franchises would be 
unscrupulous and vicious enough to abuse the powers obtained 
thereby. 

Knowing these things and seeing the men, women and chil- 
dren of the various communities turned over for exploitation to 
those who bought franchises, he devoted much attention to mu- 
nicipal affairs in the various municipalities of the country. 

One situation that attracted his attention was that presented 
by the city of St. Louis — a great, thriving, industrious city with 
ambitions that surmounted disadvantageous location, with a people 
that had struggled against and conquered the ebb and flow of 
the mighty Mississippi, with a people ready for and capable of 
accomplishing all that the people of a city more favorably sit- 
uated could accomplish. 



52 CHAIRMAN CBUICE INTRODUCING MR. MERIWETHER 

There he saw bridge monopolies, street car monopolies, 
telephone, gas, and other municipal monopolies with their ten- 
tacles reaching out and drawing into their maws the wealth, the 
happiness, and comfort of the people of that city. 

There he also saw a figure heroic and romantic, as heroic as 
any crusader that ever stormed a pagan battlement, as romantic 
as any Lochinvar that ever rode out of the west. 

This figure battled single-handed and alone against the 
rapacious creAV, and so powerfully did he appeal to the Governor 
that the Governor went to St. Louis and threw to his support 
all the energy he possessed. 

We have with* us today the central figure of the St. Louis 
contest, and I deem it a privilege of no little moment to be 
allowed to introduce to you Mr. Lee Meriwether. 



Address by Mr. Lee Meriwether 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

Fifteen years ago the man in whose memory we are gathered 
tere today was vilified and traduced from one end of the land to 
the other. Not since the days of Aaron Burr or Benedict Arnold 
had any one man in American public life become the object of 
such concentrated, such unrelenting, such malignant hatred as 
the democratic governor of Illinois. 

Why was this ? Some have thought it was because of his 
pardon of the Anarchists, but this view will not bear the test of 
dispassionate investigation. Many of the great newspapers of 
the country, owned, or at any rate controlled, by what a demo- 
cratic Republican has recently termed the "Powers of Pillage," 
cared nothing for the Anarchists; being well-informed men, 
these newspaper owners knew that the Anarchists, however 
guilty they may really have been, were never proved guilty; 
consequently that their conviction, resting as it did upon, passion 
and prejudice, not upon evidence, was illegal, and therefore 
their pardon was the act of a brave man, of a man who set 
righteousness above self, of a man who dared do right even 
when he knew that the result to himself would be a storm of 
passionate prejudice. 

No, the agents of the Interests cared nothing for the Anar- 
chists, but they hated, they feared men with hearts big enough 
to feel for humanity, and brains big enough to thwart monopoly 
in its thousand insidious assaults upon the very heart and 
genius of democratic institutions. 

And that, my friends, is why they hated and feared Altgeld. 
For Altgeld's every act, every word was instinct with the spirit 
of pure democracy. His veto of monopoly legislation saved to 
the people of Illinois gas and railway and other franchises worth 



54 ADDRESS BY MR. LEE MERIWETHER 

hundreds of millions of dollars. His messages to Grover Cleve- 
land showed that while an autocratic president might ignore the 
Constitution and invade a state with a federal army he could 
not do it in secret; he could not do it without having the act 
shown to all the world in its true colors. Whether the President 
of the United States ought to have the power to decide for him- 
self when to overrun a state with federal soldiers is a question 
upon which men may conscientiously differ; but no man, after 
reading Altgeld's messages to Cleveland, can conscientiously say 
that under the Constitution as it now stands the President has 
any such autocratic power. 

Monopolists who lost hundred- million -dollar franchises, and 
executives w^ho disliked being reminded of a little thing like the 
law and the Constitution, when it suited their purposes to be 
autocratic instead of democratic, hated and feared Altgeld. And 
so their organs let loose upon his head a veritable cyclone of 
calumny. He was pictured as an anarchist with a bomb in one 
hand and a torch in the other. He was denounced as a dema- 
gogue who preached the gospel of discontent and sowed the seeds 
of revolution. He was vilified, slandered, lied about, until any man 
of lesser zeal, lesser courage, lesser moral grandeur would have 
sunk crushed beneath the burden. 

That Altgeld did suffer, keenly suffer, those who knew him 
intimately can attest. His was a kindly lovable nature. True 
to those whom he trusted, to those whom he loved he was as 
tender as a woman. It was a great grief to him to be so mis- 
judged, so misunderstood, by his country-men. He knew the 
power of the press; he knew that the persistent slanders of mo- 
nopoly organs had turned against him hundreds and thousands 
of plain people, the very people he was defending, the people 
who had everything to gain, nothing to lose, by the success of 
his principles. 

But while it hurt him, hurt him to his heart's core, Altgeld 
never faltered. He remained steadfast to his convictions, and, as 
you all remember, he died as he had lived, preaching the 
gospel of Democracy in the loftiest meaning of that word — the 
gospel of righteousness, of Christian fellowship between man 
and man. 



ADDBUSS BY MB. LEE MEBIWETHEB 55 

It is a comfort to us who were privileged to enjoy that great 
man's friendship to know from his own dying words that, though 
hurt by the misconception of him created in the public mind by 
monopoly's newspapers, he was never discouraged. You recall 
the occasion at Joliet on March 11, 1902, when, just as he was 
closing a powerful speech, Altgeld fell unconscious to the floor, 
never again to utter word or see the light of day — for he died 
the following morning. The words he was speaking as he fell 
were these: 

"I am not discouraged. Things will right themselves. The 
pendulum swings one way, and then another, but the steady pull 
of gravitation is toward the center of the earth. . . . Right 
may seem to be defeated, but the gravitation of Eternal Justice 
is toward the throne of God." 

"The great clock in the Chamber of the Omnipotent never 
stands still. It ticked away the years as it had once ticked 
away the centuries ! " 

And behold ! Within fifteen years of the day when Altgeld's 
name was the synonym for all thafc was desperate, rabid, fearful 
in public affairs, men and women meet in a theatre of America's 
second largest city, to do homage to his memory. And not only 
that: it is beginning to be understood in all parts of the Repub- 
lic that when John P. Altgeld died the nation lost one of its 
really great men. 

My friends, this fact, and this gathering here to-day seem to 
me deeply impressive, deeply significant. It shows that a noble 
spirit, like a nugget of pure gold, may be covered with slander 
and abuse without impairing the true worth within. Time, the 
remedial agent of all wounds, of all wrongs, wears the dust 
and dirt away, leaving the gold uninjured, unsullied, unstained ! 

During the years of Altgeld's life many politicians arose 
who for a brief moment, were mistaken for statesmen. During 
their day they were followed by a crowd of cringing courtiers, 
by the poor souls ever ready to crook the pregnant hinges of the 
knee that thrift may follow fawning. 

And during their short day these shallow souls took their 
fling at John P. Altgeld. They denounced him as an anarchist ; 
they reviled him as a demagogue ; they damned him to everlasting 



56 ADDBESS BY JIR. LEE MERIWETHER 

oblivion. But where are those men now ? The very names of 
many of tiiem are already forgotten, while the name of Altgeld, 
as the years roll by, is honored by ever-increasing numbers of 
thoughtful patriotic Americans. 

Any man who is rich, any man who is powerful, can com- 
mand popular applause; for the world worships success, and 
there are always masses of men, time-servers and courtiers, 
ready to applaud the rich and powerful in the hope of advanc- 
ing their own sordid fortunes. No credit to such a man to 
receive the noisy applause of the populace. 

But the applause that springs from an overflowing heart to 
one without wealth, without position, without power to reward 
a friend or punish a foe, — ah, my friends, when applause of that 
sort is given, he who receives it does so by reason of virtues too 
great, of qualities too exalted, ever to be permanently undermined 
by petty spite and malice. That Altgeld received that sort of 
applause, that he will receive it in ever-increasing measure as 
the years pass by, is another evidence of his moral and mental 
greatness. 

History is full of instances of the final triumph of genius, of 
intellectual and moral greatness, over mere power and money. 
In 1815 the insolent Bourbon king of France caused the Column 
Vendome to be hurled to the ground and the bronze effigy of 
Napoleon to be cast into cannon. The very mention of Napo- 
leon's name was forbidden. And six years later when his body 
was lowered into a lonely grave on a barren isle at the other 
end of the world from France, the Bourbon king drew a sigh of 
relief and fancied that France was rid forever of the great Corsi- 
can's memory ! 

But within twenty years of that burial on St. Helena, a vessel, 
convoyed by a fleet of war ships, bore the dead emperor across 
the seas ; and on reaching France he was accorded a funeral the 
like of which is unparalleled in all history. From the Rhine to the 
Pyrenees, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, the people of 
France stood with bared heads on the day of Napoleon's second 
funeral. It is said that no fewer than six millions of Frenchmen 
lined the banks of the Seine from the coast to the capital, anxi- 
ous to get a mere glimpse of the catafalque containing the lifeless 



ADDBESS BY MR. LEE MEBIWETHER 57 

body of the returned exile. On that day the whole tribe of 
Bourbons and aristocrats learned that, although dead, Napoleon 
was mightier than any of them ! 

In Rome there is a noble statue of Giardino Bruno erected 
on the very spot where he was burned at the stake in Feb- 
ruary, 1600. 

In Rouen there is a cross which for centuries has com- 
manded the world's mournful attention. Last September when I 
stood with uncovered head before that cross it was smothered 
under a mass of liowers. Fresh flowers have covered it for hun- 
dreds of years — because five hundred years ago Joan of Arc was 
burned to death on that spot in Rouen. To-day statues are 
erected in her honor ; streets bear her name ; secular historians 
unite in declaring her one of the world's most extraordinary 
figures; and the Church at last has decreed her a saint and 
given her the crown of martyrdom ! 

Think of the infinite pity, th'e infinite tragedy of it all ! So 
much suffering during life, when suffering hurts so much; so 
much homage after death when the victim cannot even know of 
the world's return to justice and reason! One generation sings 
peans of praise and erects monuments to the memory of those 
whom a previous generation burned at the stake or crucified on 
the cross ! 

We may not burn men at the stake to-day ; we may not phys- 
ically crucify them. But the man who champions the dumb op- 
pressed many, the man who seeks to stay the hand of gold and 
greed, — that man will excite the undying hatred of the articulate 
few, and will be sujajected to a flood of calumny but little less 
trying to a sensitive soul than physical martyrdom. 

John P. Altgeld suffered this kind of martyrdom. His ene- 
mies, controlling some of the leading newspapers of the land, — 
that is to say, controlling the principal avenues of approach to 
the public conscience, — waged an unrelenting campaign to assas- 
sinate his reputation. Controlling the powers of money and 
high finance, they sought with only too much success to despoil 
him of his private fortune. 

But if these vicissitudes soured Altgeld's temper or weakened 
his courage, the world was not permitted to know it. As I saw 



58 ADDRESS BY MB. LEE MERIWETHER 

him shortly before his death, he was a man of lofty mind and 
exalted character, altogether superior to that failing of little 
men — repining over the past or chafing under the inevitable. 

Secure in the approval of his own conscience, Altgeld bore 
his standards high to the very last ; protected by the poise of a 
calm and philosophical mind, he bore without complaint the 
slings and arrows of the malignant enemies who continued to 
assail him until death closed his eyes and removed him at last 
from the realm of strife and malice. 

By the grave of one of America's public men stands a 
rugged rock on which are these words : 

"For him life's fitful fever is ended. The foolish wrangle 
of the market and the forum is over. Grass has healed over the 
scar made by the descent of his body into the bosom of the 
earth, and the carpet of the child has now become the blanket 
of the dead." 

My friends, when the day comes to me — as soon or late it 
will come to all who are born of woman — when grass has healed 
over the scar made by the descent of my body into the earth, it 
may be that the blanket of the dead will again become the carpet 
of a child — my son. 

When that day comes I could ask no greater honor than that 
my son, as he stands at his father's grave, shall feel as proud 
of my name and of my memory as we to-day feel proud of the 
name and memory of John P. Altgeld. 



Chairman Cruice Introducing the Hon. George Fred. Williams 



Mr. Vice-President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

From the beginning of time to date, avarice and greed, em- 
bodied and living, has levied toll upon the human race. 

Ever have there been men who, by various means and 
methods, have taken wealth belonging to others. 

Ever have there been men, women and children, who, in con- 
sequence of the toll exacted, have been condemned to poverty 
with the consequent misery and suffering. 

Ever also have there been men, who, fearing not the wrath or 
weapons of the oppressor, have fearlessly and eloquently espoused 
the cause of the oppressed. 

Of the latter class was Governor Altgeld, a stern, unyielding 
foe of all wrong or things that smacked of wrong, of ready 
sympathy for the misfortunes of all, a champion of the oppressed 
of every race and condition of men. 

From ocean to ocean, and from the Gulf to the Great Lakes, 
in almost every community in the land, his voice rung out a 
clarion call to the politically righteous to rally to the standards. 

Abhorrent of those who were patriots for revenue only, con- 
temptuous of the smug hypocrisy that preached God and practiced 
Mammon, meeting with outstretched arms those who, like him- 
self, did things for God and humanity without hope of material 
reward, he made for himself many bitter enemies and won many 
devoted friends. 

Preaching as he did that disloyalty to one's fellows was 
treason to God, he preached of a civilization in which all men 
lived for one another and not off of one another; he prayed for 
the beneficence of a Utopia, and against the cannibalism of a wolf 
pen ; he but asked that the democracy of Jefferson and the 
republicanism of Lincoln be the standards of our national life, 
and upon these altars he laid down his life. 



60 CHAIRMAN INTEODUCING THE HON. MR. WILLIAMS 



♦ 



In one of his campaigns, he met a man who gave word for 
word and blow for blow with him, — and against the abuses he 
complained of, — a man endowed by his Creator with a wealth of 
brain and brawn and a charm of tongue and manner that opened 
to him any door he approached, with talents that enabled him to 
pick any avenue of human activity. He chose the path selected 
by Governor Altgeld, and kept step with him in his life-time and 
avows his loyalty in death. 

In every locality in this broad country where the democracy 
of Christ is known and understood, there also is known and 
loved the name of George Fred. Williams of Massachusetts, who 
will now address us. 



Oration by the Hon. George Fred. Williams 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

Only out of hearts which still throb with the memories of a 
great man could there have been chosen memorial words so apt 
to describe his life purposes and deeds, as those which these 
tablets bear. 

The first inscription tells of the high service he gave to his 
state; the second, his sense of justice and devotion to constitu- 
tional guaranties; the third epitomizes his defense of the weak, 
his protest against compromise, and the perversion of the instru- 
ments of justice; the fourth expresses his mighty faith in the 
triumph of the right. Out of his own mouth has his history 
been wrilrten upon the tablets we dedicate today, graven with a 
pencil of steel. 

How imposing is the life of a great patriot! The historians- 
laureate of monarchs, have not been able to dwarf the figures of 
those who have demanded justice and liberty for human-kind. 
The eloquence which survives is that which is brave, human, and 
self-sacrificing. There is no poetry in selfishness, greed inspires 
no songs, and even religion cannot paint a god-head except in 
suffering. 

It has been too often said that John P. Altgeld was mis- 
understood. The truth is that he was too well understood. That 
wonderful and almost superhuman solidarity, the trust of all 
trusts, which we call privilege, dreads but few men. It stands 
in awe only of the man who is armed with the flaming sword of 
truth, and who wields it defiantly, who feels no pain, no wounds, 
no taunts, no discouragement, and fears not even death. Such a 
man was Altgeld, and if his life was darkened by suffering, by 
slander and defeats, it was the life of his choice; its pathos is 
but seeming, and its heroism brought the rewards with which 



62 ORATION BY THE HON. GEORGE FRED. WILLIAMS 

only the great can be satisfied. "No man," he says, "ever 
served . his country without being vilified, for all who make a 
profit out of injustice will be your enemies; but as sure as the 
heavens are high and justice is eternal will you triumph in the 
end." Such was Altgeld's triumph when he fell to earth with 
an appeal for an oppressed nation ringing from his lips. He did 
not misunderstand the nature of his mission when he declared, 
"It is the ardor of devotees that shatters empires, and we 
must win this fight by self-sacrificing manhood; men with flesh- 
pots cannot help us." He fought against Mammon, and Mammon 
turned its terrible weapon against him as against no other man 
in the history of his generation. These were his words of defi- 
ance : ' ' No great moral or political reform ever yet rested on 
money. The Almighty has never yet tried to start the seeds of 
justice in the garden of lucre. Only poisonous vines will grow 
there; noble manhood perishes there. It is moral force that in the 
end moves the world." Wherever wrong uttered its defiance or 
demanded concession, whether it spoke from the bench, from the 
political convention, or from the presidential chair, it found 
Altgeld standing full-armed, his back against the waU. Privi- 
lege knew him and understood him and if millions of honest men 
were misled in judging hira, it was because privilege, realizing 
the destructive capacity of the man, determined that his power 
must be broken by any means. 

Slander and misrepresentation were the contemptible weapons 
used against the man who had no price for the betrayal of the 
people. The pity is that he was misunderstood by those he 
loved; would that they had rallied as one man to a leader who 
knew no fear, compromise, or danger, when the oppressed stood 
in dumb need. 

In the awful atmosphere of graft which pervades even the 
home of his adoption can it be doubted today that a blind and 
unquestioning support of Altgeld would have made this state 
one of the purest in our Republic? With a majority ever at his 
back, who can measure the wrongs that would have been righted 
and the blessings that would have been realized! . He is now 
lost to you when his presence would send a thrill of despair to 
every grafter within the borders of the state. 



OBATION BY THE HON. GEORGE FEED. WILLIAMS 63 

Oh, the pathos of a great life ! the dream of the superhuman, 
broken at every waking by the desperate realities, the drudgeries, 
the disappointments, ingratitudes, and common pains ! Tliere is 
a greatness of today's civilization which in all human history 
has been the presage of decay, but which Altgeld believed, with 
a great faith, to be but the night which shall soon emerge into 
a brilliant dawn. This greatness lies in the power and posses- 
sion of material things, the mastery of wealth. Our leaders of 
industry and finance now seem to tower like a colossus over the 
earth. With implacable ambition, they garner the wealth of the 
world, and by adding to their vast human retinue, which strives 
and yields for them, their hands grow stronger in the guidance 
of human affairs. The nations listen to them, millions bow to 
their will. Humanity is to them but an instrument for their own 
aggrandizement, and when they depart the markets are the only 
mourners. 

Mark now the other greatness which takes nothing for itself, 
but gains strength from what it gives; the greatness of the man 
who deems the gathering of the fruits of another's toil unjustly 
to be not honorable but despicable ; who treats poverty as a per- 
version of God's will; whom the tears of the oppressed inspire, 
and who shields man, woman, and child as he would shield father, 
mother, sister, or brother; who gathers power only that he may 
use it to elevate human-kind, and bring the fruits of the earth 
to the service of all who toil thereon. With such a purpose, the 
smallest deed adds to the progress of mankind, and such an 
inspiration shall never die, but passes into the realm of eternal 
good. He is the greatest who gives the most; he is the meanest 
who gives the least. By this standard will the deeds of John 
P. Altgeld be judged and his influence measured. 

And to-day we must again put our helpless reason to the 
everlasting question, "What is such a life worth?" Sacrifice, 
sacrifice, and ever sacrifice, that justice may be done! Justice 
even to those who resist it, as the bonded slave clings to his 
chains and his rations. At the best we can add to the right 
not more than an infinitesimal fraction. But the God who gave life 
to our dust is not indifferent whether we return it pure, life-sustain- 
ing, breatheable, or corrupted, infectious, and destructive. 



64 ORATION BY THE HOX. GEOliGE FRED. WILLI AMIS 

He is a weak observer who thinks the work of Altgeld is 
not apparent in the world. If you would know by heart the 
appeals which the patriots are making in the politics of today, 
read the book of Altgeld well named "Live Questions," be- 
cause the questions he asked cannot die. It is the greatest 
text-book of modern progressive statesmanship. Those utter- 
ances of his, seeming like fire-brands in their day, are now 
becoming commonplaces, accepted truths, many of them ; but, 
my countrymen, the fire of his inspiration fused the metal with 
which those commonplaces are now tyx)ed. You saw him 
suffer that these truths might live. In them he breathes with 
us this very hour, his winning smile is reflected in the faces of 
those who are to reap some of the blessings which his love 
planted and his self-sacrifice watered. 

There is much praise of insurgency within a party, but did 
Altgeld ever compromise with the servants of privilege in his 
own party '? Was he not the bravest of the insurgents ? Had 
not Altgeld spent his life in this insurgency, the soil might yet 
have been unyielding where the crop of Democracy is now 
smothering the weeds of both political parties. 

Altgeld" s fate was that of the pioneer, the discoverer in 
statesmanship. He saw and despised the truckling of our 
civilization to material interests. There is 'no time so por- 
tentous in the life of a man as the day when, by design or 
accident, he draws aside the curtain which covers the inner 
sanctuary of privilege, and sees the high priests at their 
work ; for it is written that no stranger shall enter into their 
sanctuary ; he must be a hypocrite who can worship there after 
he has seen ; he must be a hero who dares to expose the 
shams. Here, Altgeld did not swerve, and here his miseries 
began. Far in advance of most men, he realized how privilege 
had worked itself into the warp and woof of our social sys- 
tem, with what unparalleled skill the interests of property have 
framed the code of human conduct, laws, and morals. He saw 
privilege deeply bedded in all the categories of life, reaching 
into the cradle, the school, the university, the church, grasping 
the press, holding the market, the counting room, the exchange, 
hiding itself in judicial robes and sitting with legislators and 



OBATION BY THE HON. GEOBGE FEED. WILLIAMS 65 

governors, working by day and night, week-days and Sabbaths, 
stamping generation after generation, merciless, inexorable, tak- 
ing hold even upon the faiths of men and wielding the sceptres 
of the world. Against this seemingly invincible power, Altgeld 
set his life-work. 

I look over the list of our great men and search their hearts, 
and find as yet not one who matches the heroism of Altgeld. 
We have not gone far in our understanding of this man until we 
recognize that he was a fanatic, — a fanatic for justice and mercy. 
Even Christians worshipping the noblest of all recorded self- 
sacrifice fail to understand, in these days, how a man may also 
give his life for his fellow-men. 

I have no apologies to make for this man's career, no 
explanation, — alas, the apologies of mankind are due to him. 
Time will vindicate him, some say. Nay, he was vindicated in 
his life; in his very thought and act nature urged him on and 
smiled when he suffered; laid her hand upon his wounds and 
whispered to him that her spear is only for the hand of the 
godlike. 

I am not willing to review the injustice and suffering which 
Altgeld endured without entering some protest against the con- 
ditions which caused them. It is a scandal of our civilization 
that one cannot today speak for human rights as against prop- 
erty interests without incurring social, political, and financial 
penalties. If his enemies will not now give him credit for sin- 
cerity, it is because they will allow the people's true advocates 
not even the peace of the grave. The time will come, if our 
Republic is to survive, when wealth must answer at the bar of 
justice for its stolid resistance to the rights of man, its indiffer- 
ence to civic righteousness, and its persecution of those who 
protest against its injustice. 

Altgeld brought against property interests the indictment that 
in the name of the law itself it defended its tools against the 
penalties for violence and even murder. With abundant testi- 
mony, he proved that the police of the city of Chicago had, 
without legal justification, broken in upon lawful assemblies of 
men and clubbed them or shot them to death in the name of the law; 
that these murderers had not been prosecuted and condemned, 



66 ORATION BY THE HON. GEORGE FRED. WILLIAMS 

and were continued in office to repeat their barbarities. Yet 
when he pardoned men who had been falsely convicted under 
forms of law, he was followed by the agents of wealth with mis- 
representation and persecution that have not had a parallel in 
the history of our country. When he released the so-called An- 
archists, he discarded the request of thousands of leading citizens 
that they be pardoned because, "assuming their guilt, these men 
had been punished enough." His answer was that if they were 
guilty, no punishment under our laws could be too severe; and 
I am glad that there stand today upon these tablets his mem- 
orable words, "They did not have a fair trial," and "the evi- 
dence utterly fails to connect the unknown who threw the bomb 
with the defendants." 

It is not important now to review his masterly discussion of 
the evidence in that case, the bias shown by the court, the pack- 
ing of the jury, the probability of personal revenge as a motive, 
and the doubts of the prosecutors. He took his responsibility like 
a brave man, and refused to yield his conscience to jDopular 
clamor. His mortal offense was that his denunciation of wrongs 
included the ferocity of courts and police. He deemed the life of 
the citizen to be as sacred against perverted legal procedure and 
the brutality of the guardians of the public peace as against the 
misdeeds of perverted men. In the moment of calm judgment, 
who will today assert that if Altgeld was convinced that the 
guilt of these men was not proven, he should have refused to 
pardon them? To this day the thrower of the bomb is unknown 
or unrevealed. The law, admittedly then laid down for the first 
time, was, that if men talk for violence, they are guilty princi- 
pals if violence is done, even though their utterances are not 
connected with the act. Such law may as well be treated as a 
menace to freedom ; it would have consigned Samuel Adams, 
Patrick Henry, and the revolutionists of all ages to the gibbet. 

Altgeld was one of the greatest democrats who has served 
this country, and his democracy nowhere conflicted with the 
Declaration of Independence. He deemed it essential to the Re- 
public that the causes of poverty be removed because "poverty 
and loss of liberty go together." He attacked evil with a con- 
summate faith, saying : ' ' Turn the sunlight of intelligence on an 
evil long enough and it will dissolve it." 



OBATION BY THE HON. GEOBGE FEED. WILLIAMS 67 

The keynote of Altgeld's conduct was duty, inspired by love. 
It would be futile here to review all the controversies into which 
duty so inspired led him. 

In his debate with President Cleveland upon the sending of 
United States troops into Illinois, when he, as Governor, stood 
ready to suppress domestic violence with the forces of the Com- 
monwealth, he fixed his eyes upon the Constitution and doggedly 
demanded that its guaranty be observed. 

He resisted with fiery eloquence the use of the injunction by 
courts of equity against the laboring masses, banded to improve 
their condition by setting the organization of men against the 
organization of capital. Since Altgeld's death, the tentacles of 
the law have wrapped themselves closer about the trades union, 
but his protests still constitute the most eloquent appeals made 
by human voice against this menace to liberty. Nowhere has 
organized labor found an abler or more devoted advocacy, inspired 
by the belief that the individual would be ground to poverty and 
slavery, unless by union of strength, the forces oE labor stood 
upon equal ground with organized industry. 

In extolling the memory of Altgeld, it is not necessary that 
he should be proved right in all his judgments. From holy writ, 
from human reason and experience, one truth shines clear above 
all doubt ; it is that human conduct should be judged according to 
the heart purpose which actuates it. Altgeld may have been mis- 
taken in his judgment of policy, but he never was mistaken in 
the motives of his act. He judged all things and all men in 
accordance witli the dictates of a pure and righteous conscience, 
and with weak man no more can be demanded. 

But, nonetheless, as this man's opinions and utterances are 
studied, we must marvel at his sagacity and prophetic vision, for 
in his eclectic radicalism we find the outlines of policies which 
are even now gaining daily in public approval. 

Spreading through the West and now even bedded in the 
constitution of our most eastern state is this truth he long ago 
uttered : ' ' Bach age furnishes a weapon for the people ; the 
weapon of this age is the initiative and referendum through 
which we can restore Democracy." 



68 OEATION BY THE HON. GEORGE FRED. WILLIAMS 

The idea of miiniciiDal government by commission, which now 
promises to j^urifj- our city politics, is at least as old as 1890, 
when Altgeld advised to "do away with governing boards of 
councils, with their division of responsibility, and have one man 
at the head of each department who feels that he is accountable 
to the peoj^le for the conduct of affairs." 

The extension of the social function of government, now rap- 
idly' progressing, was foreshadowed by him thirteen years ago 
in the words : ' ' To-day, if asked whether the government will 
take the railroads or establish the referendum, say you do not 
know, but that every step which may become necessary to save 
free government and restore happiness in this land will be taken. 
Say that if necessary to do so, the government will not only take 
the railroads, but every monopoly and concentration of property 
which interferes with either the rights or the welfare of the 
people.'" 

In 1896 he said: "Our people are beginning to understand 
that making money scarce makes money dear ; that dear money 
means low prices for proper tj^ for the products of the earth and 
for the products of labor.'' This was Altgeld's statement of a 
fact which was denied in 1896 with vitriolic vehemence, but which 
is now admitted and restated by the journals not only of Wall 
street but of the whole world. 

The "good roads" agitation was in its infancy when he 
urged them upon the people in 1892. 

As a judge he refused to receive railroad passes when the 
practice was common, which is now generally prohibited by law. 

Upon the question of industrial monopoly, he recognized the 
world, tendency of consolidation, and Avith a largeness of view 
which may now well be emulated, declared, "It is a question 
whether there is any other way of preserving an equilibrium 
in our institutions than by organization and concentration of 
the counter-balancing forces." 

Even against the combined opinions of employers and em- 
ployes, Altgeld insisted that the influence of the strike was so 
far-reaching as to constitute a social disturbance well within the 
legitimate functions of government. He therefore advocated 
some form of compulsory arbitration of trade disputes, and it 



OBATION BY THE HON. QEOBGE FRED. WILLIAMS 69 

may be said that, so far as progress has been made with this 
vexing question, it has been along the lines he has suggested. 

In the days of its infancy, he was a strenuous advocate of 
the Australian ballot. 

He regarded the increase of divorce as keeping pace with 
progress in the emancipation of women, and deemed that separa- 
tion was better for the family life than the rearing of children 
among uncongenial and brutal conditions. 

His earliest utterances were in behalf of factory laws against 
child labor and unsanitary conditions. 

For the improvement of the judicial procedure, he favored a 
jury verdict based upon a two-thirds vote, the encouragement of 
arbitration, the abolition of official fees, and the prompt trial of 
causes. 

He became at an early day a high authority on criminology. 
He deplored the committing to prison of persons arrested for 
misdemeanors, the association of young offenders with hardened 
criminals, and the imprisonment of any person when reformation 
seemed possible through mercy; and, indeed, it may be said that 
the great reforms which have been wrought in the administra- 
tion of the criminal laws have followed closely the conclusions 
of Altgeld upon these problems. 

Altgeld was not an exponent of any political school; his 
mind was open to the truth which emanated from all of them. 
He did not rank as a Prohibitionist, but he asserted of the liquor 
traffic that "the effect of the business is to cater to the weak- 
nesses, to destroy the character and lower the social status of 
men and communities; and this demoralization and ruin reaches 
back to the source from which it sprung." 

He was not a zealot upon woman's suffrage, but his judgment 
on this question went back to the foundations of justice. "There 
is no man," he says, "who holds a commission which authorizes 
him to sit in judgment on the rights of woman. She has as 
much right to sit in judgment on man and limit his sphere and his 
actions as he has to limit hers. Therefore, any attempt by man 
to deny woman independence or equality of rights is simply the 
assertion of brute force." 



70 OBATION BY THE BON. GEOBGE FEED. WILLIAMS 

Of war he asserts : ' ' The business of killing men is a brutal 
and degrading profession which must brutalize those who engage 
in it to a greater or less degree. Even the man who delights in 
killing the lower animals gradually changes; he becomes coarse, 
his finer and nobler feelings are blunted, and he finally par- 
takes somewhat of the nature of the fierce brutes whose conduct 
he imitates." But he adds: "There is no nobler spectacle than 
that of a great body of citizens taking up arms in defense of 
liberty. To establish liberty for mankind is the highest mission 
on earth." 

We should not be justified in reading only the intellect of 
Altgeld on this occasion, but have a right to turn to the pages 
of his heart. His ideals find expression in these words : ' ' Hap- 
piness does not necessarily demand a mansion and a well-filled 
pocket-book; nor are a high social status and the plaudits of 
admirers essential. But he who has deep down in his soul the 
knowledge that he has always fought for the right, and that he 
has never knowingly wronged another could not be unhappy 
though the world were arrayed against him." 

He looked with reverence upon the reaching out of the 
human soul in prayer, of which he says, "Only the sincere and 
true heart can pray. The genuine and earnest prayer, the con- 
centration of thought upon that which is godlike and the blending 
of all desires into one fervent petition and bringing one's nature 
into harmony with that petition, has an uplifting and inspiring 
effect upon him who prays." "If our gratification," he says, 
"comes from seeking the welfare of man and helping the weak, 
from doing duty and being just, in striving for all that is noble 
and uplifting, then will the countenance radiate with the glow of 
immortality." 

Of a faithful public official Altgeld says: "Such men become 
beacon lights in the long upward march of the human race, and 
the world canonizes their memory. Their contemporaries may be 
slow to recognize their worth, but at least they will have post- 
humous fame." 



OBATION BY THE HON. GEORGE FRED. WILLI Ah 

I recall that in some of those precious moments of coi 
which I cherish, Altgelcl said to me: "When in doubt as 
duty, I ask myself: What should I do if I could come after 
and make my decision ? " 

Of faithful clergymen he says, "Their hearts go out to i 
wretched and forsaken, but their souls dwell on the heights t 
their faces are turned toward the morning. Their presence is, 
benediction and their lives light the way to the eternities." \. 

Of the prevalent commercialism he says: "The fierce com- 
mercialism that is now ripening and seeking to re-enthrone 
brute force is the product of the ideas that were sown some fifty 
years ago, when little else was talked of but the development of 
the country and the making of money. This commercialism is 
pulling down great mottoes and sneering at all high standards. 
It is turning our faces from the sun and erecting altars to 
Mammon. But while commercialism is running riot at the top, 
a new order of thought is growing up at the bottom. Both 
Europe and America are producing a higher order of ideas that 
breathe the spirit of human brotherhood and promise a nobler 
civilization for man. The men who imbibe this spirit and labor 
to elevate the race will be the great men of the future." 

The philosophy of Altgeld's life, the sternness of his devo- 
tion to his cause, his faith in the compensations of nature, are 
epitomized in these words: "Every deception, every cruelty, 
every wrong, reaches back sooner or later and crushes its author. 
Justice is moral health, bringing happiness; wrong is moral 
disease, bringing moral death. When the final judgment comes 
to be entered, when the sum and the total are told, it will be 
written that he who takes more than he gives courts death and 
invites destruction." 

Altgeld was a great optimist, believing that man who makes 
injustice can make justice. He was a fatalist, confident of the 
compensations of nature. He was a lover, and mankind was the 
object of his love. 

I loved this man, and approached this memorial service in a 
spirit of sorrow" ; but not long could this spirit survive under the 
radiance of inspiration from the life and words of this man as 
they passed before me in review. I have come into the glory 



EATION BY THE HON. GEORGE FEED. WILLIAMS 

achievements as I have seen him, bruised and bleeding, 

himself fiercely upon the barbed wires which greed had 

v^n up between humanity and the fair field of God's harvest; 

.indful of his wounds, beating away his precious strength to 
3ue the weak, carrying new scars each day, ever at the fore- 
n\t, as if the blood he shed were the measure of his service. 
.s the mother would rush into the flames to rescue her child, 
jO he was blind to consequences when he saw before him his 
human brother struggling in the grasp of injustice. To him the 
masses of men were made in God's image, eager for sympathy, 
looking yearningly upward ; cowed it may be, groaning under 
the wounds of oppression, some coarse, sweaty, unlovely, rough; 
some gentle, lovely and pure ; but it was a mass of human bodies 
with human souls reaching out appealingly to him as if each had 
been his mother, or his child calling to him for justice. He was 
prosperous, and the temptations of luxury did not swerve him. 
He gained power only to use it for the betterment of mankind. 
The loss of power and wealth brought him anxiety and pain only 
as it lessened his efficiency for the noble purposes of his life. 

We know what solace to him was the love of her who com- 
forted and sustained him in his hardships; we know, too, that 
however precious they would have been to him, children of his 
body were not the need of a man to whom all humanity was as 
the offspring of his soul. 

We were his friends; here, at least, a loving judgment may 
be rendered upon his life; hatred beats in vain against his mem- 
ory, fear is relieved, envy is silenced by death, love alone ma.y 
now utter its tribute of affection and review the scenes of 
his life. 

We may stand in his presence again, his eager blue eye 
giving out the warm welcome which ever awaited his friends. 
His strong face bespeaks his indomitable courage and will; so 
gentle does it seem that it is hard to believe he can fight for his 
cause with a relentless determination; not of commanding pres- 
ence or physical ruggedness, his words are all power, and you 
know that no blandishments, dangers, or threats will move him 
from the path he has laid out. In the murky atmosphere of 
graft and greed, like a burst of glorious sunlight is the memory 



OBATION BY THE HON. GEORGE FRED. WILLIA 

of this man. No price could buy away the services of AL 
humanity. I speak not of the vulgar sale for money, but 
more subtle bribe of social preferment, of comfort, lux 
peace, honors, kind words and looks, the flattery of the \ 
and the powerful, the deck of the yacht, the place of honoi 
the banquet, and of power in the State. 

Oh, beloved, wonderful man, how did you put aside all tho. 
cherished things which come to subservient talents, and raci 
your tired and painful body with strivings for the weak who 
could give you nothing, and who even turned their faces from 
you in the hours of your best service ! What mattered to you 
the criminal, the diseased, the sweaty workman, the unjustly 
condemned ! What were the distant Boers to you for whose life 
and liberties you were pleading when the shaft of death entered 
your aching heart ! You cannot answer us, but we know that 
your life was given to us as a benediction; and now beyond our 
ken we believe it has become a part of the eternal power for 
good. 

You have said it to us; let now our love repeat to you: 
"We hear the rustling of a wing; we feel a breath from the 
other shore; we do not know where, but are sure we shall meet 
over there." 




THE 






4 P. Altgeld Memorial Association 



TO KEEP ALIVE THE INSPIRING MEMORY OF JOHN P. ALTGELD, 
A'OLUNTEER SOLDIER, JURIST, STATESMAN. PUBLICIST AND 
HUMANITARIAN, AND TO INCULCATE THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE 
GOVERNMENT TO WHICH HE. HEROICALLY DEDICATED HIS LIFE 




CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 



^<1 



President. NOBER GOTTLIEB 



Tice-Presidents 

L,EO Austrian . Daniel L. Cruice Joseph P. Mahoney Louis F. Po.st 

MARTIN Becker Andrew J Graham M. L. McKinley James C. Russell 

Capt. Wm. p. Black Jacob C. LeBosky Jos. A. O'Donnell M. F. Strider 



Secretary. JOSEPH MARTIN. 167 E. Chicago Avenue 




Willis J. Abbot 
Chas. Frederick Adams 
Miss Jane Addams 
Peter Aitken 
WaiTen "Worth Bailej^ 
Trying- W- Baker 
Rev. Herbert S. Bigelow 
Millard F. Bingham 
R. W. Bodding-house 
A. J. Boulton 
Edward Osgood Brown 
Francis Fisher Browne 
W. J. Bryan 
Edward Cahill 
John J. Corcoran 
John W. Cox 
Rev. Thomas E. Cox 
Walter S. Cronin 
Ben. Danziger 
H. H. Devereux 
C. W. Espey 
Joseph B. Fischer 



MEMBERS 

Jeremiah Flahnan 
Charles Gay 
Miss Catherine Goggin 
Henry A. Goulden 
Richard C. Gunning 
Bolton Hall 
Isaac W. Hi ggs 
John P. Hopkins 
Tom L. Johnson 
Ellis O. Jones 
Jerry J. Kane 
Dr. Gertrude B. Kelly 
A. P. Kinsella 
Jacob C. LeBosky 
John J. Lentz 
Charles D. Lewis 
Pay Lewis 
Joseph M. Loughlin 
Geo. A. Mawman 
Lee Meriwether 
Thomas G. McEUigott 
Wm. S. McNary 



Geo. E. McNeil 
Douglas A. Petre 
R. F. Pettigrew 

C. C. Philbrick 
Louis Prang 

T. P. Quinn 
Redick M. Ridgely 
Raymond Robins 
Dr. J. W. Scott 
Samuel Seabury 
Geo. H. Shibley 
Roger C. Sullivan 
J. J. Townsend 

D. B. Van Vleck 
Henry M. Walker 
C. A. Williams 
Geo. Fred Williams 
Peter Witt 

C. E. S. Wood 

Dr. Rachael S. Yarros 

Victor S. Yarros 



k 






if i 



iinisHiliiiilllliiiy^ 



